MODERN  BUILDERS 
OF  THE  CHURCH 

TWENTY-FIVE  LESSONS  FOR  THE 
DAILY  VACATION  BIBLE  SCHOOL 

PREPARED  FOR  USE  IN  THE 
INTERMEDIATE  DEPARTMENT 


PAUL  PATTON  FARIS 


PHILADELPHIA 

BOARD  OF  CHRISTIAN  EDUCATION  OF  THE 
PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  THE  U.  S.  A. 

1923 


3 .  )7- ^ 

LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 

) 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 


BR  1704  . F22 
Faris,  Paul  Patton 
Modern  builders  of  the 
church 


-V> 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2019  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/modernbuildersofOOfari 


MODERN  BUILDERS 
OF  THE  CHURCH 


TWENTY-FIVE  LESSONS  FOR  THE 
DAILY  VACATION  BIBLE  SCHOOL 


PREPARED  FOR  USE  IN  THE 
INTERMEDIATE  DEPARTMENT 


BY  v/ 

PAUL  PATTON  FARIS 


PHILADELPHIA 

BOARD  OF  CHRISTIAN  EDUCATION  OF  THE 
PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH  IN  THE  U.  S.  A. 

1923 


Copyright,  1923,  by 

BOARD  OF  CHRISTIAN  EDUCATION  OF  THE 
PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH 
IN  THE  U.  S.  A. 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


CONTENTS 


Lesson  Page 

I.  A  Tinker  Who  Preached  from  Prison .  5 

II.  A  Minister  Who  Stirred  All  England .  12 

III.  An  Early  Evangelist  to  Two  Continents .  20 

IV.  The  Pathfinder  of  Religious  Freedom .  28 

V.  The  First  Apostle  to  the  Red  Men .  35 

VI.  America’s  Pioneer  Presbyterian .  41 

VII.  A  Pastor  Who  Roused  New  England .  47 

VIII.  A  President  of  Yale  Who  Started  a  Revival .  54 

IX.  An  Itinerant  Bishop  of  America .  61 

X.  From  Law  Office  to  Christian  Pulpit .  68 

XI.  An  American  Chrysostom . 75 

XII.  Am  Evangelist  to  All  the  World .  82 

XIII.  The  Founder  of  Our  Sunday  Schools .  92 

XIV.  The  Friend  of  Scotland’s  Children .  99 

XV.  A  General  of  the  Cross .  107 

XVI.  A  Friend  to  the  World's  Young  Men .  115 

XVII.  From  Cobbler’s  Bench  to  India’s  Strand .  124 

XVIII.  The  Father  of  Chinese  Missions .  132 

XIX.  America’s  First  Foreign  Missionary .  139 

XX.  A  Pioneer  of  African  Civilization .  147 

XXL  Uganda’s  Missionary  Mechanic .  155 

XXII.  A  Missionary  Without  a  Country .  164 

XXIII.  A  Christian  Hero  of  the  South  Seas .  173 

XXIV.  A  Christian  Martyr  Among  the  Indians .  182 

XXV.  The  Earliest  Apostle  to  the  Alaskans .  192 


3 


^■1 


. 


LESSON  I 


A  TINKER  WHO  PREACHED  FROM  PRISON 
Read:  Acts  16:  16-34. 

Memory  Verse:  “I  have  chosen  the  way  of  faithfulness: 

Thine  ordinances  have  I  set  before  me.” 

— Ps.  119:30. 


WHEN  BOYS  PLAYED  AT  THE  KING'S  COMMAND 

On  a  Sunday  afternoon,  about  the  year  1648,  a  group 
of  boys  were  playing  ball  on  the  village  green  in  Bed¬ 
ford,  England.  Near  them  were  other  boys,  and  also 
many  men,  shooting  with  bows  and  arrows,  playing 
leapfrog,  dancing  around  an  old-fashioned  Maypole, 
and  playing  other  games.  Few  of  them  were  afraid 
of  being  reproved  for  playing  on  Sunday,  for  it  was 
the  king  himself  who  had  ordered  them  to  play. 
Charles  I  foolishly  thought  that  if  the  people  did  not 
play  games  on  Sunday,  they  might  get  so  tired  of  the 
day  that  they  would  want  to  go  back  to  the  Catholic 
Church.  This  was  in  the  days  when  England  had  only 
recently  left  the  Catholic  Church,  and  become  one  of 
the  lands  of  the  Protestant  Reformation. 

Most  of  these  men  and  boys  were  undisturbed  over 
the  fact  that  they  were  playing  games  on  Sunday,  but 
not  all.  One  of  them,  a  boy  named  John  Bunyan,  be¬ 
lieved  not  only  that  it  was  wrong  to  play  ball  on  Sun¬ 
day,  but  also  that  it  was  wrong  to  play  ball  on  any  day. 

5 


6 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


He  had  heard  so,  very  often,  even  from  his  playmates, 
who  had  been  brought  up  by  the  overstrict  Puritans 
of  his  time.  That  very  morning,  moreover,  he  had 
shivered  in  church  service  when  the  minister  spoke  of 
the  awfulness  of  the  sin  of  Sunday  afternoon  sports. 
Yet  he  had  gone  out  and  joined  in  the  playing. 

Suddenly,  as  he  played,  John  heard  a  strange  voice. 
As  he  was  about  to  bat  the  ball,  he  thought  he  heard 
some  one  say :  “Will  you  leave  your  sins,  and  go  to 
heaven?  Or  will  you  have  your  sins,  and  go  to  hell ?” 

Startled,  the  boy  looked  up,  and  as  he  looked  he 
thought  that  he  saw  Christ  in  the  sky,  looking  down  on 
him.  In  an  instant  the  vision  was  gone.  John’s  con¬ 
science  hurt  him  painfully,  but  he  refused  to  stop  play¬ 
ing  ball.  “It’s  too  late  for  me  to  be  good  now,”  he  said 
moodily  to  himself.  “So  I  may  as  well  have  a  good 
time  while  I  am  alive.” 

Yet  the  boy’s  conscience  refused  to  leave  him  alone. 
Day  after  day,  even  when  he  was  with  the  other  boys, 
cursing  and  telling  lies  and  swearing  that  these  tales 
were  true,  he  thought  of  his  vision  of  Christ 

One  day  John  was  standing  by  a  shop  window, 
swearing  as  usual,  when  a  woman  put  her  head  out  of 
the  window,  and  sharply  scolded  him.  “You  will  spoil 
all  the  boys  in  the  whole  town !”  she  said. 

That  was  too  much  for  John.  In  silence  he  hung  his 
head,  for  he  had  nothing  to  say  to  the  rebuke.  But 
he  stopped  swearing  at  once.  “It  was  a  great  wonder  to 
me,’’  he  said  years  later.  “Whereas,  before,  I  knew  not 
how  to  speak  unless  I  put  an  oath  before  and  another 


A  TINKER  WHO  PREACHED  FROM  PRISON  7 


behind,  to  make  my  words  have  authority,  now  I  could 
without  it  speak  better  and  with  more  pleasantness 
than  ever  I  could  before.’’ 

TINKER  AND  MINISTER 

From  that  day  John  Bunyan  was  a  better  boy.  He 
was  the  son  of  a  tinker,  a  mender  of  pots  and  kettles, 
and  he  himself  soon  began  to  follow  this  lowly  and 
despised  trade.  In  his  own  town,  and  in  near-by  vil¬ 
lages,  he  made  broken  pots  whole,  and  he  always  did 
the  task  well.  While  he  sat  at  work  over  his  tinker's 
fire,  he  often  thought  of  his  past  evil-doing,  and  longed 
for  a  peaceful  heart.  Then  he  began  reading  the  Bible. 
A  day  came  when,  while  traveling  in  the  country  at  his 
trade,  he  thought  of  the  one  Bible  verse  that  seemed  to 
be  just  what  he  needed.  This  was  it:  He  hath  “made 
peace  through  the  blood  of  his  cross.”  John  Bunyan 
acted  on  these  words,  and  accepted  Christ;  and  gradu¬ 
ally  peace  came  into  his  heart. 

When  the  young  tinker  had  become  a  man,  he  united 
with  the  Baptist  Church,  and  later  he  became  a  minister. 
He  could  not  preach  in  fine  churches,  for  most  of  these 
belonged  to  the  Church  of  England,  which  had  tried  to 
forbid  any  preaching  except  its  own.  Yet  Bunyan,  in  spite 
of  much  opposition  and  danger,  did  preach  the  gospel. 
He  preached  wherever  he  could — in  the  woods,  in  barns, 
on  village  greens,  and  in  some  small  chapels. 

Great  success  came  to  the  humble  minister;  the  people 
listened  to  him  eagerly,  for  he  spoke  both  simply  and 
eloquently.  Then  trouble  began  to  arise.  He  was 


8 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


slandered  by  persons  who  were  envious  of  his  fame,  or 
who  disliked  what  he  said,  for,  while  his  preaching  was 
very  simple,  it  was  very  plain  and  rather  stern.  Bunyan 
was  called  a  witch,  a  Jesuit,  and  even  a  highway  robber, 
all  of  which  charges  of  course  were  quite  untrue.  Yet 
the  minister  kept  on  preaching. 

WHEN  MEN  PREACHED  AGAINST  THE  KING'S  COMMAND 

After  a  time  still  greater  troubles  faced  the  fearless 
minister.  The  Government  of  England,  which  had 
been  favorable  to  Puritans,  Baptists,  and  other  dis¬ 
senting  Christians,  came  under  the  control  of  King 
Charles  II,  and  under  him  it  forbade  any  religious 
meetings  except  those  of  the  Church  of  England,  or  the 
Episcopal  Church.  It  would  not  even  permit  a  minister 
of  a  dissenting  organization  such  as  the  Baptist  Church 
to  live  within  five  miles  of  a  city.  All  of  the  dissenters' 
chapels  and  churches  were  closed. 

This  was  a  time  when  it  would  have  been  easy  to 
feel  that  it  was  wise  and  safe  not  to  have  church 
services  at  all  for  a  while.  But  many  ministers  and 
many  churches,  including  the  Baptists  at  Bedford,  were 
unwilling  to  find  safety  in  any  such  way;  and  John 
Bunyan  was  unwilling  to  stop  preaching  at  any  earthly 
king’s  command.  The  Bedford  Baptists  went  into  the 
woods  for  their  meetings,  and  Bunyan  went  with  them. 
In  the  woods  he  preached  the  gospel  to  them. 

Spies  were  there,  also,  however.  After  Bunyan’ s 
first  preaching  service  in  the  woods,  these  spies  hurried 
off  to  the  officers  of  the  law,  to  tell  them  that  Bunyan 


A  TINKER  WHO  PREACHED  FROM  PRISON  9 


had  broken  the  king’s  commandment.  A  friend  of  Bun- 
yan’s  hearing  the  news,  told  the  minister  of  his  danger, 
and  urged  him  to  flee.  But  Bunyan  refused;  to  run 
away  would  discourage  the  congregation,  he  said.  He 
stayed,  and  before  the  day  was  over,  the  constables  came 
to  the  house  where  he  was  living,  and  put  him  under 
arrest.  The  next  day  the  judge,  before  whom  the 
brave  minister  was  taken,  offered  to  release  him  on 
bail  if  he  would  promise  not  to  preach  until  his  trial. 
But  Bunyan  would  make  no  such  promise.  So  he  was 
put  in  the  Bedford  jail. 

IN  PRISON  AND  OUT 

Bunyan’ s  imprisonment  was  very  long.  More  than 
twelve  years  passed  before  he  finally  was  released.  Yet 
at  almost  any  time  he  could  have  gone  free,  as  he  very 
well  knew,  if  only  he  had  been  willing  to  consent  to 
stop  preaching.  After  six  years  he  was,  indeed,  let  out 
of  jail,  but  because  he  began  preaching  at  once,  he 
was  again  lodged  in  prison.  Six  years  later  the  same 
thing  happened;  back  to  jail  the  persistent  preacher 
went. 

It  was  not  much  longer,  however,  before  the  govern¬ 
ment  was  changed  again,  and  all  the  dissenting  minis¬ 
ters,  in  consequence,  were  allowed  to  preach  wherever 
and  whenever  they  chose.  And  so,  at  last,  John  Bun¬ 
yan  went  free. 

The  very  next  day  Bunyan  became  pastor  of  the 
Bedford  Baptist  Church,  and  the  remainder  of  his  life 
was  devoted  to  preaching,  to  opening  new  churches, 


10 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


and  to  writing  books.  The  fame  of  Bunyan  went  all 
over  England  and  Europe  and  even  distant  America. 
He  became  famous  for  two  reasons.  First,  he  was 
noted  for  his  power  as  a  preacher.  At  one  service  in 
London,  on  a  cold  winter  morning,  twelve  hundred 
persons  were  present  at  seven  o’clock  to  hear  him,  and 
in  the  city  of  Southwark  the  church  sometimes  was  so 
crowded  that  Bunyan  had  to  be  lifted  to  the  pulpit  over 
the  heads  of  the  congregation.  Yet  he  was  even  better 
known  as  a  writer,  for  John  Bunyan  was  the  author  of 
that  famous  book,  ‘‘The  Pilgrim’s  Progress.” 

A  BOOK  THAT  PREACHED  THE  GOSPEL 

It  was  in  Bedford  jail  that  Bunyan  wrote  “The 
Pilgrim’s  Progress.”  The  story’s  beginning  sounds 
like  it :  “As  I  walked  through  the  wilderness  of  this 
world,”  the  allegory  opens,  “I  lighted  on  a  certain  place 
where  there  was  a  den  [the  Bedford  jail],  and  I  laid 
me  down  in  that  place  to  sleep;  and,  as  I  slept  I 
dreamed  a  dream.  I  dreamed,  and,  behold,  I  saw  a 
man  clothed  with  rags,  standing  in  a  certain  place  with 
his  face  from  his  own  house,  a  hook  in  his  hand,  and  a 
great  burden  upon  his  back.” 

This  is  the  beginning  of  a  story  about  how  a  man 
named  Christian  made  his  journey  through  life  to 
heaven.  It  is  a  story  so  interesting,  so  clear,  and  so 
powerful,  that  it  has  helped  millions  of  people  since 
Bunyan’ si  day  to  live  a  better  Christian  life.  “The  Pil¬ 
grim’s  Progress”  has  been  the  most  widely  read  book 
ever  printed  in  English,  except  the  Bible.  Even  now 


A  TINKER  WHO  PREACHED  FROM  PRISON  11 


the  missionaries  in  heathen  lands  are  glad  to  have  John 
Bunyan’s  great  story  translated  into  the  languages  of 
the  people  among  whom  they  work,  and  the  book  is 
found  extremely  helpful  there. 

No  doubt,  the  judges  who  kept  Bunyan  in  prison 
twelve  years  thought  that  they  were  keeping  him  from 
preaching  the  gospel,  yet  the  book  he  wrote  there  gave 
him  the  opportunity  of  preaching  through  it  as  effec¬ 
tively  as  ever  he  could  have  preached  outside  of  prison. 
He  was  in  jail,  but  he  preached  from  jail  by  writing 
“The  Pilgrim’s  Progress.” 

A  PRESERVER  OF  THE  REFORMATION 

Bunyan  lived  at  a  time  when  the  Reformation  of 
Luther,  Calvin,  and  Knox  was  so  new  that  in  England 
there  was  still  danger  that  the  people  would  either  re¬ 
turn  to  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  or  else  lose  their 
Christianity  altogether.  But  the  preaching  and  writing 
of  Bunyan  did  a  very  great  deal  to  prevent  both  these 
disasters.  The  common  people  of  England,  with  John 
Bunyan’s  help,  learned  to  follow  Christ,  and  in  time 
the  Reformation  became  firmly  established  in  every  land 
where  the  English  language  was  spoken.  This  ex¬ 
plains  why  John  Bunyan  is  widely  known  as  one  of 
the  leading  “preservers  of  the  Reformation.” 

Suggestion:  On  a  world  map  trace  the  history  of  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church — first  in  Asia,  then  in  Africa  and  Europe.  We  are 
now  in  England,  and  soon  will  go  to  America,  and  later  across 
the  Pacific  Ocean. 

Read  extracts  from  “The  Pilgrim’s  Progress.” 


12 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Books  Suggested 

Froude,  “John  Bunyan.” 

Thaine,  “History  of  English  Literature”:  Biography  of 
Bunyan. 

Brown,  “Bunyan:  His  Life,  Times,  and  Work.” 

Venables,  “Great  Writers  Series”:  Biography  of  Bunyan. 

LESSON  II 

A  MINISTER  WHO  STIRRED  ALL  ENGLAND 

Read:  II  Tim.  1:3-8. 

Memory  Verse:  “Him  that  cometh  to  me  I  will  in  no  wise 
cast  out.” — John  6:  37. 

WHEN  ENGLAND  WAS  LAWLESS  AND  GODLESS 

When  John  Bunyan  died,  England  was  in  a  distress¬ 
ing  state.  Except  among  the  followers  of  such  dissenting 
preachers  as  Bunyan,  there  was  little  real  religion  in  the 
land,  and  little  respect  for  the  law.  In  London  and 
Birmingham  mobs  often  burned  houses,  threw  open 
the  jails,  and  robbed  and  killed  almost  as  they  pleased. 
The  way  to  make  gin  was  discovered  in  1684,  just 
before  Bunyan  died,  and  this  liquor  was  so  cheap  and 
so  intoxicating,  that  drunkenness  soon  was  seen  every¬ 
where. 

In  the  country  the  people  were  becoming  poorer 
and  poorer,  and  wilder  and  wilder.  They  had  practi¬ 
cally  no  religious  training  of  any  kind.  Long  after¬ 
wards,  a  religious  worker,  in  one  large  district,  found 
only  one  Bible,  and  this  was  being  used  only  to  prop  up 
a  flowerpot. 


A  MINISTER  WHO  STIRRED  ALL  ENGLAND  13 

These  wretched  conditions  seem  to  have  been  the 
result  of  war,  of  disputes  between  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  with  dissenting  leaders  like  Bunyan,  and  of  a  real 
lack  of  religion  among  many  of  the  clergy  of  the 
Church  of  England.  It  was  a  time  when  rich  people 
were  so  selfish  and  so  fond  of  pleasure  that  the  needs  of 
other  persons  were  quite  forgotten.  So  the  poor  be¬ 
came  poorer,  the  ignorant  became  more  ignorant,  and 
lawbreakers  became  more  lawless  and  brutal. 

A  BOY  WHO  MADE  ENGLAND  BETTER 

But  there  were  better  times  ahead  for  England.  Not 
all  of  the  people  were  bad.  In  the  middle  classes  a  fine 
love  of  religion  was  to  be  seen.  This  was  evident  in 
such  movements  as  the  Puritanism  that  afterwards  did 
so  much  for  America,  and  that  even  then  was  keeping 
the  fear  of  God  alive  through  the  preaching  of  earnest 
men  like  Bunyan.  From  among  people  of  this  godly 
sort  there  was  born  in  1703,  fifteen  years  after  Bun¬ 
yan’ s  death,  a  boy  whose  life  was  to  turn  England  up¬ 
side  down.  This  boy,  John  Wesley,  became  the  greatest 
helper  that  his  country  had  had  for  many  a  long  year, 
a  man  whom  all  the  world  has  honored  from  his  day 
until  our  own. 

Somewhat  like  Timothy,  to  whom  Paul  wrote  in  two 
books  of  the  New  Testament,  John  Wesley  was  fortu¬ 
nate  in  having  excellent  parents  and  grandparents.  His 
father  and  his  grandfather  had  been  ministers,  and  his 
father  died,  while  yet  a  young  man,  as  a  result  of  im¬ 
prisonment  for  his  faith.  Wesley’s  grandmother  was  a 


14 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Puritan,  and  his  mother,  Susannah  Wesley,  was  one 
of  the  best  mothers  that  a  boy  ever  had.  Though  she 
had  eighteen  children  besides  John,  she  trained  each  of 
them  carefully  in  reading,  in  courtesy,  and  in  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  Bible.  Once  a  week  she  had  an  hour’s  talk 
with  each  child  about  God  and  religion ;  every  Thursday 
evening  came  the  hour  for  John,  an  hour  that  did  much 
to  prepare  him  for  his  future  career 

When  John  Wesley  went  to  school,  he  remembered 
his  religious  training,  and  prayed  and  read  the  Bible 
regularly.  He  needed  religious  help,  indeed,  for  at 
school  his  life  was  very  hard.  At  Charterhouse  School 
in  London,  the  older  boys  were  rough  and  domineering. 
John  tasted  no  meat  there  for  years  ;  the  big  boys  always 
ate  his  share.  Later,  in  college  at  Oxford,  he  found 
almost  no  religion,  yet  he  did  what  he  felt  was  right, 
and  God  took  care  of  him.  When  he  was  graduated, 
he  determined  to  become  a  minister,  and  so  at  the  age 
of  twenty-two  he  was  ordained  a  deacon  in  the  Church 
of  England. 

For  several  years  Wesley  was  a  lecturer  in  one  of  the 
Oxford  colleges,  and  curate,  or  assistant  minister,  with 
his  father  at  Epworth,  his  birthplace.  Then  he  returned 
to  Oxford  as  a  lecturer  in  Lincoln  College.  Here  a  new 
and  important  experience  came  to  him.  A  group  of 
young  men,  members  of  the  Church  of  England,  had 
formed  one  of  the  religious  societies  that  were  rather 
common  at  that  time  in  England.  John  and  his  younger 
brother  Charles  joined  this  society,  and  John  soon  be¬ 
came  its  leader. 


A  MINISTER  WHO  STIRRED  ALL  ENGLAND  15 


A  NICKNAME  AND  THE  REASON  FOR  IT 

This  society  at  Oxford  early  received  a  nickname. 
It  was  usually  called  the  Holy  Club,  but  the  Oxford 
students  and  lecturers  who  did  not  like  it,  called  the 
young  men  “Methodists.”  They  made  fun  of  the  strict 
methods  that  Wesley  and  his  friends  used  in  learning 
how  to  live  a  godly  life.  These  were  some  of  the 
methods  :  The  young  men  met  regularly  in  John  Wes¬ 
ley’s  room,  at  first  two  or  three  times  a  week,  then 
every  night.  They  studied  Latin,  Greek,  and  the  Bible. 
They  helped  one  another  by  discussing  what  they  read. 
They  rose  at  five  o’clock  every  morning,  and  prayed 
three  times  a  day.  Once  a  week  they  went  to  a  jail  to 
call  on  men  imprisoned  for  debt.  They  also  visited 
sick  persons.  They  gathered  together  children,  and 
taught  them  the  Church  catechism.  All  their  money, 
except  just  enough  to  buy  food  and  clothing  which  they 
really  needed,  they  gave  to  purchase  food  and  medicines 
for  the  poor.  Indeed,  all  that  they  possibly  could  spare, 
in  money  and  time,  went  to  other  people. 

One  would  not  suppose  that  other  people  could  dis¬ 
like  such  methods  as  these,  and  make  fun  of  them ;  yet 
these  young  “Methodists”  were  constantly  ridiculed  and 
even  persecuted.  The  fact  is,  their  cleanness  and  un¬ 
selfishness  reproached  the  consciences  of  the  irreligious 
students  and  lecturers;  and  in  those  evil  times  men  did 
not  like  to  have  their  consciences  aroused. 

When  John  Wesley  was  about  thirty-two  years  old, 
he  came  over  to  Georgia  to  be  minister  to  the  new 
colonists  there,  and  to  preach  to  the  Indians.  He  did 


16 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


a  great  deal  of  good,  but  after  two  years  he  returned  to 
England.  As  soon  as  he  reached  London,  he  met  a 
certain  Moravian  gentleman,  who  was  on  his  way  to 
America  as  a  missionary,  and  the  Moravian  gave  Wes¬ 
ley  a  great  deal  of  help,  just  the  help  he  needed. 

At  this  time  Wesley  felt  that  he  was  not  a  real 
Christian,  although  he  was  a  minister.  He  felt  that  he 
needed  to  get  sloser  to  God.  The  Moravian  reminded 
him  that  God  receives  everyone  who  comes  to  him  in 
faith.  “Only  believe  in  Christ,"  said  the  missionary. 
Wesley  at  once  knew  that  he  had  heard  the  one  message 
that  his  heart  required  just  then.  Like  Luther  and 
Calvin,  the  great  Reformers,  Wesley,  the  great  Metho¬ 
dist,  learned  that  salvation  and  power  come  simply  from 
faith  in  the  love  and  mercy  of  God  in  Christ. 

From  about  that  time  John  Wesley  became  a  power¬ 
ful  preacher  of  the  gospel.  He  preached  wherever  he 
had  the  opportunity — in  inns,  on  horseback,  to  people 
whom  he  met  by  the  roadside,  in  chapels,  in  homes,  and 
in  churches.  Everywhere  he  urged  people  to  have  faith 
in  Christ. 

A  NICKNAME  THAT  BECAME  AN  HONOR 

After  a  time  Wesley,  who  once  more  was  the  leader 
of  the  old  Holy  Club,  now  meeting  in  London,  deter¬ 
mined  to  organize  a  larger  society.  He  was  not  ashamed 
of  the  nickname  that  had  been  given  him  and  his 
friends  at  Oxford,  so  his  new  society  was  frankly  known 
as  a  society  of  Methodists.  It  was  only  an  organization 
of  the  Church  of  England,  yet  in  time,  after  Wesley's 


A  MINISTER  WHO  STIRRED  ALL  ENGLAND  17 


death,  it  became  a  Church  in  itself,  the  great  Methodist 
Church  that  now  is  found  in  every  part  of  the  world. 

The  first  society  of  Methodists  was  divided  into  bands 
of  five  to  ten  members  each,  which  met  separately  twice 
a  week,  all  the  bands  meeting  together  every  Wednes¬ 
day  night.  As  a  result  of  these  gatherings  and  of  their 
Bible-reading  and  prayer,  the  Methodists  gained  deep 
happiness  in  their  lives,  and  did  much  good  among  the 
people  around  them. 

By  this  time  the  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England 
were  becoming  much  disturbed  over  the  success  of  Wes¬ 
ley  and  his  friends.  This  kind  of  preaching  and  teaching 
was  so  new  to  them  that  they  considered  it  wrong.  One 
by  one,  they  began  to  refuse  to  permit  the  Methodist 
ministers  to  preach  in  their  pulpits;  in  a  short  time 
practically  every  church  in  London  was  closed  to  the 
.  Methodists,  and  few  churches  in  other  parts  of  England 
were  open  to  them. 

A  PREACHER  IN  ALL  OUTDOORS 

So  Wesley  commenced  preaching  out  of  doors,  as  one 
of  his  friends  had  been  doing  for  some  time.  He  went 
to  Bristol,  and  there  on  a  hill  outside  the  city  he  preached 
one  day  to  three  thousand  persons,  who  heard  him  with 
eagerness.  Day  after  day  he  preached  wherever  he 
could  find  an  audience,  until  within  a  month  he  had 
addressed  a  total  of  forty  thousand  persons. 

Wesley  had  found  his  life  work.  From  now  on  he 
preached  to  multitudes  of  men  and  women  in  England, 
Scotland,  and  Ireland.  Inside  of  six  months,  he  had 


18  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

organized  six  new  Methodist  societies,  with  hundreds 
of  members,  practically  all  from  the  lower  classes, 
who  sadly  needed  his  help.  Gambling,  profanity,  drunk¬ 
enness,  lawlessness,  and  even  ignorance  diminished. 
Churches  were  built  and  schools  were  established,  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  poor  people,  and  by  gifts  from  Wesley’s 
richer  friends.  Some  of  these  new  converts  to  Christ 
themselves  became  preachers;  in  a  few  years  scores  of 
lay  preachers  were  at  work,  helping  the  common  people 
to  understand  the  power  of  the  religion  of  Christ. 

For  fifty  years  Wesley  himself  continued  to  preach  in 
every  part  of  the  British  Isles.  He  crossed  the  Irish 
Sea  fifty  times,  traveled  on  land  250,000  miles 
(as  far  as  ten  times  around  the  globe),  and  visited  re¬ 
mote  fishing  villages  and  distant  mining  towns.  Most 
of  his  traveling  was  done  on  horseback.  Once  his  horse 
fell,  bruising  him,  yet  the  next  day  he  was  able  to  preach 
to  six  thousand  people.  In  the  fifty  years  he  preached 
more  than  forty  thousand  times,  an  average  of  fifteen 
sermons  a  week,  to  millions  of  persons. 

Great  dangers  faced  Wesley  and  his  preachers 
throughout  all  their  lives.  Though  most  of  the  poorer 
people  were  friendly  when  unmolested,  many  an  uprising 
was  stirred  up  by  the  upper  classes.  In  the  last  ten 
years  of  Wesley's  life  he  and  his  preachers  were  mobbed 
almost  every  month.  In  one  town  a  mob  drove  cows 
into  the  congregation  while  preaching  was  going  on. 
In  other  places  rough  men  disturbed  the  services  by 
blowing  horns,  ringing  bells,  sending  the  town  criers 
to  bawl  in  front  of  the  preacher,  or  hiring  fiddlers  and 


A  MINISTER  WHO  STIRRED  ALL  ENGLAND  19 


ballad  singers  to  drown  out  the  preachers’  voices.  More 
than  once,  attempts  were  made  to  kill  Wesley  and  his 
helpers. 


AN  ENGLAND  THAT  WAS  CHANGED 

Yet  the  work  went  on,  went  on  with  remarkable 
power  and  success.  When  Wesley  died  in  1791,  at  the 
age  of  87,  100,000  persons  in  the  British  Isles  were 
Methodists,  and  now  the  Methodists  throughout  the 
world  are  numbered  by  many  millions.  Beside  this, 
the  labors  of  Wesley  and  his  followers  produced  a 
notable  change  in  the  Church  of  England ;  new  ideas 
crept  in  because  of  Wesley’s  activities,  and  the  Church 
grew  kinder,  more  unselfish,  and  truer  to  Christ.  In 
fact,  the  preaching  of  Wesley  had  the  effect  of  arousing 
all  England  to  a  higher  and  better  life. 

John  Wesley  was  one  of  the  great  men  in  a  century 
of  many  great  men.  His  life  was  pure,  generous,  and 
fearless,  but  his  chief  glory  lies  in  the  fact  that  “he 
taught  thousands  of  his  fellow  men  to  know  what  the 
religion  of  Jesus  Christ  really  means.” 

Suggestion:  Read  some  of  the  stories  of  Wesley’s  fearless¬ 
ness,  as  in  Winchester’s  book  named  below. 

Books  Suggested 

Winchester,  “The  Life  of  John  Wesley.” 

Green,  R.,  “John  Wesley,  the  Methodist.” 

Green,  J.  R.,  “The  World’s  Great  Events”  (Vol.  V):  Biog¬ 
raphy  of  Wesley. 

See  also  “Encyclopoedia  Britannica”  and  the  new  Schaff- 
Herzog  “Encyclopedia  of  Religious  Knowledge” — for  Wesle3r 
and  many  men  of  the  later  lessons. 


20  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

LESSON  III 

AN  EARLY  EVANGELIST  TO  TWO  CONTINENTS 
Read:  Matt.  3:  1-12. 

Memory  Verse:  “Our  God  is  in  the  heavens: 

He  hath  done  whatsoever  he  pleased.” 

— Ps.  115:3. 


A  JEERING  CROWD  AND  AN  INDIGNANT  BOY 

One  Sunday  morning  in  the  year  1734,  a  young  man 
of  nineteen  stood  near  the  entrance  of  St.  Mary’s 
Church  at  Oxford,  England.  His  eyes  were  turned 
toward  the  town,  over  the  heads  of  most  of  the  student 
body  of  Oxford  University,  who  were  massed  in  front 
of  the  church,  leaving  a  narrow  lane  open  in 
their  midst. 

A  stir  of  excitement  was  evident  as  a  new  group  of 
students,  all  soberly  clad,  appeared  down  the  street. 
“Here  they  come,”  cried  voices  in  the  crowd.  “Give 
them  a  welcome.” 

The  young  man  by  the  church  door  watched  intently, 
and  with  rising  indignation.  He  saw  the  thirty  new¬ 
comers  advance  into  the  lane  prepared  for  them.  Then 
he  witnessed  what  made  him  tingle  with  shame  for 
his  college  mates.  He  saw  the  newcomers  pushed  and 
jostled,  heard  jeers,  hoots,  and  howls  of  ridicule,  and 
caught  the  deriding  shouts  of  some  of  the  mob :  “Here 
he  is— the  ‘Father  of  the  Holy  Club.’  ”  “Here’s  the 
leader  of  the  ‘Methodists.’  ” 

But  he  thrilled  with  admiration  as  he  saw  the  young 


EARLY  EVANGELIST  TO  TWO  CONTINENTS  21 


man  indicated  by  this  scornful  shout  pay  no  heed  what¬ 
ever  to  the  jeers,  but  with  his  companions  proceed 
calmly  through  the  crowd  into  the  church.  They  were 
going  to  Communion,  and  to  Communion  they  would 
go  in  spite  of  the  ridicule  of  all  Oxford. 

It  was  a  sight  that  the  young  man  who  looked  on  was 
to  witness  many  a  Sunday  morning  thereafter,  a  sight 
that  never  left  him  unmoved  and  that  finally  led  him 
to  join  this  same  band  of  derided  fellow  students.  These 
brave  men  were  the  members  of  Oxford’s  club  of  earnest 
seekers  after  a  holy  life;  their  fearless  leader  was  John 
Wesley;  and  the  young  man  who  admired  them  was 
some  day  to  be  one  of  the  most  famous  of  them  all — 
George  Whitefield,  an  evangelist  to  two  continents. 

A  LIQUOR  SELLER  WHO  BECAME  A  MINISTER 

Whitefield  had  only  recently  come  to  Oxford.  He 
was  the  youngest  child  of  a  widow,  who  for  years  had 
been  keeper  of  the  Bell  Inn  at  Gloucester,  George’s 
birthplace,  and  in  this  inn  George  had  worked  for  some 
time  behind  the  bar,  drawing  beer  and  ale  for  his 
mother’s  customers.  He  had  not  been  a  very  religious 
boy  in  those  days.  Indeed,  with  some  of  his  wild  com¬ 
panions  he  had  run  more  than  once  into  one  of  the 
Gloucester  churches  on  a  Sunday  morning,  and  in  the 
midst  of  the  service  had  shouted  in  derision,  “Old  Cole, 
Old  Cole!"  at  the  faithful  minister  in  the  pulpit. 

Once  he  had  gone  to  Bristol,  and  there  had  felt  a 
longing  to  be  a  really  good  boy  and  a  noble  man;  but 
on  his  return  to  Gloucester,  his  former  companions  had 


22  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

quickly  drawn  him  back  into  his  old  habits.  When  he 
was  eighteen  the  opportunity  had  come  to  go  to  Oxford, 
where  he  could  pay  his  expenses  by  being  a  servant  to 
other  students,  and  he  had  gone  with  eagerness,  for  he 
longed  for  an  education.  At  Oxford  he  had  heard 
almost  at  once  of  the  derided  “Holy  Club,”  and  be¬ 
fore  long  he  had  formed  a  habit  of  standing  near  the 
church  every  Sunday,  to  witness  that  weekly  scene  of 
shame  and  bravery.  That  experience  always  called 
forth  his  deep  respect  for  the  persecuted  young  men, 
and  in  time  it  produced  a  longing  to  join  them.  They 
had  a  courage  and  a  desire  for  better  things  that  he 
himself  wished  to  have. 

Not  many  months  passed  before  Whitefield’ s  interest 
in  the  Methodists  came  to  their  knowledge,  and  John 
Wesley  invited  him  to  join  them.  Wesley  lent  him  a 
book,  “The  Life  of  God  in  the  Soul  of  Man,”  that 
led  Whitefield  to  give  his  heart  completely  to  Christ. 
Then  the  newer  student  gladly  united  his  fortunes  with 
those  of  his  admired  friends  of  the  Holy  Club;  he,  too, 
became  a  Methodist. 

FROM  PERSECUTION  TO  POPULARITY 

On  Whitefield,  too,  now  descended  the  ridicule  and 
persecution  that  had  been  given  to  his  friends.  Other 
students  threw  handfuls  of  dust  at  him  as  he  passed; 
the  men  for  whom  he  worked  declined  to  pay  him ; 
friend  after  friend  deserted  him.  The  master,  or  presi¬ 
dent,  of  the  college  threatened  to  expel  him  if  he  ever 
visited  the  poor  again,  as  he  must  do  as  a  loyal  member 


EARLY  EVANGELIST  TO  TWO  CONTINENTS  23 

of  the  club.  Yet  the  next  poor  person  Whitefield  heard 
of  he  called  on  at  once.  He  was  not  expelled,  but  the  op¬ 
position  of  teachers  and  students  persisted ;  nevertheless, 
Whitefield  courageously  continued  doing  what  he  con¬ 
sidered  his  duty.  He  called  on  the  poor,  visited  pris¬ 
oners  in  the  jails,  urged  people  to  accept  Christ,  and  be¬ 
gan  preaching  to  small  groups  of  persons  whenever  he 
had  an  opportunity;  he  was  a  young  man  who  would 
not  be  terrified. 

When  Whitefield  was  only  twenty-one  years  old,  he 
was  ordained  a  deacon  in  the  Church  of  England,  and 
the  next  Sunday  he  preached  his  first  formal  sermon. 
Two  different  ministers  invited  him  to  preach  in  their 
churches  during  their  long  absences.  One  of  these 
churches  was  in  London.  In  each  place  the  younger 
minister  preached  with  such  power  that  immense  con¬ 
gregations  came  to  hear  him.  At  the  same  time  he 
visited  the  sick,  the  poor,  the  imprisoned,  and  soldiers  in 
their  barracks,  bringing  them  relief  from  their  troubles 
of  body,  mind,  and  heart. 

Almost  at  once  great  fame  came  to  Whitefield.  When 
it  was  heard  in  Bristol  that  the  young  minister  was  on 
his  way  to  that  city,  huge  crowds  went  out  of  the  town 
to  meet  him.  When  he  preached  in  Bristol,  the  congre¬ 
gations  “filled  the  pews,  choked  the  aisles,  swarmed 
into  every  nook  and  corner,  hung  upon  the  rails  of  the 
organ  loft,  climbed  upon  the  leads  of  the  church ;  as 
many  people  had  to  turn  away  disappointed  as  had 
gained  admission.”  It  was  a  remarkable  greeting  for 
a  young  man  to  receive. 


24 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


OVER  THE  SEAS  TO  AMERICA 

At  the  height  of  his  early  fame,  Whitefield  followed 
the  example  of  John  and  Charles  Wesley,  and  went  to 
Georgia.  He  stayed  there  much  longer  than  had  the 
W esleys,  however,  who  were  back  in  England  before  he 
sailed;  and  he  went  to  America,  not  once,  but  seven 
times.  In  Georgia  he  was  sent  to  the  village  of  Fred¬ 
erica  as  pastor  to  a  congregation  of  only  forty  persons. 
Yet  Whitefield  ministered  to  these  few  as  helpfully  as 
he  had  ministered  to  the  thousands  who  had  greeted 
him  in  England.  The  people  of  Frederica  heard  him 
eagerly;  practically  every  person  in  town  attended  his 
services.  Such  was  the  beginning  of  his  remarkably 
useful  life  in  America. 

Whitefield  went  back  to  London  after  a  year,  in  order 
to  get  a  grant  of  land  in  Georgia  for  an  orphans’  home. 
He  received  the  land,  with  money  to  build  the  home, 
and  the  orphanage  became  a  great  blessing  in  America 
for  many  years.  But  the  most  interesting  part  of  his 
long  stay  in  England  had  to  do  with  his  preaching. 
Whitefield  found  that  during  his  absence  conditions  had 
changed  greatly.  Ministers  of  the  Church  of  England 
objected  to  the  preaching  of  Whitefield  and  of  the  Wes¬ 
leys  ;  they  seemed  to  be  afraid  of  the  Methodists’  power 
over  the  common  people.  So  most  of  them  refused  to 
let  the  young  ministers  preach  in  their  churches.  Find¬ 
ing  this  state  of  affairs  in  London,  Whitefield  went  to 
Bristol,  where  the  people  had  welcomed  him  so  gladly 
the  year  before;  but  even  here  he  found  no  church 
open  to  him. 


EARLY  EVANGELIST  TO  TWO  CONTINENTS  25 


PREACHING  OUT  OF  DOORS 

Accordingly,  Whitefield  went  where  the  people  were. 
In  the  coal-mining  town  of  Kingswood,  not  far  away, 
he  preached  on  a  Saturday  afternoon  to  two  hundred 
miners.  A  day  or  two  later  he  addressed  two  thou¬ 
sand  of  them,  and  in  two  days  more  four  thousand. 
Before  long  he  was  preaching  out  of  doors  to  crowds  of 
from  fifteen  to  twenty  thousand.  Because  of  this 
astonishing  experience  Whitefield  realized  then,  as  never 
before,  that  the  common  people  of  England  were  hungry 
to  hear  the  gospel. 

After  a  short  while,  a  gentleman  of  Bristol  offered 
Whitefield  the  free  use  of  his  bowling  green  as  a  preach¬ 
ing  place.  Here  from  the  time  of  Whitefield’ s  first  ser¬ 
mon  immense  crowds  gathered.  Next,  the  preacher 
went  to  his  old  home  at  Gloucester.  Here  he  preached, 
also,  and  here  “Old  Cole,”  the  minister  at  whom  as  a 
boy  he  had  jeered,  welcomed  him  heartily  as  a  fellow 
minister  of  God.  Everywhere  in  that  section  of  country 
Whitefield  preached,  by  the  roadsides,  in  town  halls, 
and  in  the  fields.  In  three  months’  time  he  had  es¬ 
tablished  a  custom  of  preaching  to  the  common  people 
that  has  not  died  out  in  England  to  this  day. 

When  the  preacher  returned  to  London,  his  fame 
preceded  him.  If  he  could  not  preach  in  London’s 
churches,  he  would  preach  in  London’s  streets.  This 
he  did,  preaching  to  more  than  twenty  thousand  persons 
the  first  Sunday.  One  of  his  London  outdoor  congre¬ 
gations  numbered  more  than  thirty  thousand  people,  in¬ 
cluding  some  on  horseback  and  others  in  coaches  and 


26  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

carriages.  The  clergy  of  the  Church  of  England  were 
astounded  and  alarmed  at  the  success  of  Whitefield, 
but  the  people  heard  him  gladly. 

A  FRIEND  OF  ALL  AMERICANS 

From  these  scenes  of  the  triumph  of  gospel  preach¬ 
ing,  Whitefield  returned  to  America,  where  similar  ex¬ 
periences  met  him.  Up  and  down  the  colonies  he 
traveled,  from  Georgia  to  Massachusetts  and  back, 
preaching  God’s  Word  to  willing  listeners.  Sometimes 
there  was  opposition,  because  it  was  a  new  thing  to 
find  people  by  the  thousands  longing  to  hear  the  gospel, 
but  gradually  most  of  the  objections  disappeared.  For 
God’s  blessing  was  on  Whitefield’s  labors.  Benjamin 
Franklin  became  one  of  Whitefield’s  most  loyal  sup¬ 
porters,  and  even  staid  old  Puritans  like  Jonathan 
Edwards  of  Massachusetts  acknowledged  his  power  and 
his  consecration  to  God. 

In  New  York  the  churches  in  which  Whitefield 
preached  were  crowded  night  after  night.  Of  his  work 
in  Pennsylvania,  Franklin’s  paper,  The  Pennsylvania 
Gazette,  printed  this  news  item :  “On  Thursday  last, 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Whitefield  left  this  city  and  was  accom¬ 
panied  to  Chester  by  about  150  horse,  and  preached 
there  to  about  7,000  people.  On  Friday  he  preached 
twice  at  Willing’s  Town  to  about  5,000;  on  Saturday, 
at  New  Castle,  to  about  2,500  ;  and  the  same  evening  at 
Christiana  Bridge,  to  about  3,000;  on  Sunday  at  White 
Clay  Creek,  he  preached  twice,  resting  about  half  an 
hour  between  services,  to  about  8,000,  of  whom  about 


EARLY  EVANGELIST  TO  TWO  CONTINENTS  27 


3,000,  it  is  computed,  came  on  horseback.  It  rained 
most  of  the  time,  and  yet  they  stood  in  the  open  air.” 

Marvelous  accounts  such  as  this  were  related  of 
Whitefield’ s  work  in  most  of  the  America  of  that  day, 
as  well  as  in  England,  Scotland,  and  Wales.  Thousands 
of  persons  were  converted  by  his  lifetime  of  preaching. 
Most  of  his  converts,  especially  in  England,  united  with 
the  Church  of  England,  but  he  established  the  work  that 
later  became  the  influential  Calvinistic  Methodist 
Church  of  Wales,  placed  the  Presbyterian  Church  of 
Virginia  on  a  firm  basis,  aided  the  churches  in  New 
England  and  New  York,  and  put  new  life  into  the  Con¬ 
gregational,  Presbyterian,  and  Baptist  churches  of 
America  and  Great  Britain.  From  his  time  to  our  own, 
the  Church  of  England  has  been  broader,  kinder,  and 
more  powerful,  largely  because  of  the  work  of  George 
Whitefield  and  the  Wesley  brothers. 

WHEN  AMERICA  MOURNED 

One  day  in  September,  1770,  Whitefield  preached  two 
hours  in  the  open  fields  at  Portsmouth,  though  he  was 
ill,  and  must  have  known  that  he  had  not  long  to  live. 
It  was,  indeed,  his  last  public  appearance;  in  less  than 
two  davs  he  was  dead,  worn  out  with  his  labors  for  his 
Master.  When  news  of  his  death  was  carried  abroad, 
the  bells  in  the  city  were  tolled,  and  the  warships  in  the 
harbor  of  Portsmouth  fired  a  salute,  and  hung  their 
flags  at  half-mast.  Funeral  sermons  were  preached  in 
his  honor  in  all  the  principal  cities  of  America,  and  the 
whole  nation,  together  with  much  of  Europe,  mourned. 


28 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Suggestion:  Point  out  London,  Bristol,  Philadelphia, 

centers  of  Whitfield’s  work;  and  Boston,  the  scene  of  the 
next  lesson. 

Books  Suggested 

Gladstone,  “George  Whitefield,  M.A.,  Field-Preacher.” 
Newell,  “Life  of  Rev.  George  Whitefield.” 

Ryle,  “Christian  Leaders  of  the  Last  Century.” 


LESSON  IV 

THE  PATHFINDER  OF  RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM 

Read:  Rom.  14:  7-13. 

Memory  Verse:  “Stand  fast  in  the  faith,  quit  you  like  men, 
be  strong.” — I  Cor.  16:  13. 

A  MAN  UNABLE  TO  BE  AFRAID 

Rhode  Island,  the  very  smallest  of  all  the  states  in  the 
American  Union,  has  one  of  the  most  stirring  stories 
of  American  history.  It  is  the  story  of  a  man  who  did 
not  know  how  to  be  afraid.  Roger  Williams  was  ab¬ 
solutely  fearless.  He  boldly  faced  judges,  governors, 
the  king,  the  Indians,  and  many  a  breaker  of  the  law. 

Roger  Williams  founded  his  colony  as  the  first  place 
in  all  the  world  where  every  man  could  worship  God 
with  complete  freedom.  America  and  the  entire  world 
as  well  have  been  freer  and  nobler  as  a  result  of  his 
policy. 

Roger  Williams  of  Rhode  Island  makes  us  think  of 
John  Bunyan,  for  he  loved  God ;  he  reminds  us  of  Wes¬ 
ley  and  Whitefield,  for  he  preached  even  when  he  was 
persecuted;  and  he  makes  us  remember  also  the  bold 


PATHFINDER  OF  RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM  29 


American  leaders  who  came  later,  Washington,  Lincoln, 
and  Roosevelt.  What  he  believed,  he  believed  with  all 
his  heart;  and  for  this  belief  he  fought  and  suffered 
and  conquered. 

A  YOUNG  MAN  WITH  MANY  FRIENDS 

It  is  strange  that  we  do  not  know  when  or  where 
Roger  Williams  was  born.  Probably  he  was  born  in 
Wales,  about  the  year  1604.  We  do  know,  however, 
that  he  went  to  school  in  London,  and  later  attended 
the  University  of  Cambridge.  Then  he  formed  one  of 
the  strong  friendships  that  helped  to  make  his  life  re¬ 
markable  for  his  friends  as  well  as  for  his  enemies.  He 
became  the  friend  of  Sir  Edward  Coke,  a  noted  au¬ 
thority  on  law,  with  whose  name  all  lawyers  every¬ 
where  are  familiar.  Through  the  kindness  of  this  fa¬ 
mous  man  Williams  became  his  pupil  and  began  to  study 
law. 

After  a  time,  however,  other  friendships  seem  to  have 
turned  Roger  Williams  from  law  study.  One  of  these 
friendships  was  that  with  the  blind  poet,  John  Milton, 
whose  powerful  writings  were  telling  the  world  of  the 
Christian  faith  of  English  Protestants  who  opposed 
the  Church  of  England.  The  great  Oliver  Cromwell, 
military  leader  of  English  Puritans,  was  another  firm 
friend  of  Roger  Williams. 

Of  course,  a  man  with  the  bold  spirit  of  Roger  Wil¬ 
liams  could  not  hold  friendship  with  such  men  as  these 
without  soon  desiring  to  live  a  courageous  and  purpose¬ 
ful  life.  So  it  was  not  long  before  his  thoughts  turned 


30 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


from  the  study  of  the  law  toward  the  study  for  the 
ministry.  Only  a  little  while  later  he  turned  from  a 
persecuted  religious  life  in  England  to  what  he  felt  was 
the  free  religious  life  of  the  new  America.  In  1631, 
Roger  Williams  landed  at  Boston,  in  the  New  World. 

A  FREE  LAND  THAT  WAS  NOT  FREE 

A  great  surprise  met  Roger  Williams  when  he  reached 
the  new  land.  Though  he  was  only  a  young  man,  he 
found  that  already  he  loved  religious  freedom  more 
than  most  of  the  colonists  of  Massachusetts  loved  it. 
He  believed,  as  we  all  believe  now,  that  anyone  has  a 
right  to  live  in  America,  whether  he  is  a  Puritan  or  a 
Presbyterian  or  a  Quaker  or  a  Jew.  But  the  Puritans 
of  Massachusetts  and  New  Haven  welcomed  no  one 
who  did  not  believe  in  God  in  the  same  way  as  they  be¬ 
lieved  in  him. 

A  person  who  brought  a  Quaker  into  the  New  Haven 
colony,  for  example,  was  fined  fifty  pounds.  More- 
over,  Quakers  who  persisted  in  trying  to  live  there  were 
branded  on  the  arm  with  the  letter  H,  as  heretics,  and 
even  had  their  tongues  pierced  with  a  red-hot  iron. 

Such  persecution  was  wrong,  Roger  Williams  as¬ 
serted,  and  he  asserted  it  almost  as  soon  as  he  landed 
at  Boston.  He  asserted  it  so  often  and  so  forcefully 
that  soon  all  the  Boston  leaders,  from  Governor  Endi- 
cott  down,  were  deeply  incensed  against  him.  When 
the  church  at  Salem  wanted  him  to  be  its  pastor,  there 
was  so  loud  an  outcry  at  Boston  that  the  governor  pre¬ 
vented  his  accepting  the  office.  Instead,  for  two  years 


PATHFINDER  OF  RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM  31 


Roger  Williams  was  associate  pastor  at  Plymouth. 
Here  he  worked  bravely  and  helpfully,  part  of  the  time 
laboring  for  the  Christianizing  of  the  Indians  living 
near  by. 


PERSECUTED  FOR  WHAT  HE  BELIEVED 

Yet  not  even  at  Plymouth  was  he  let  alone.  The 
government  at  Boston,  with  other  opponents,  made  the 
life  of  the  young  minister  so  unpleasant  that  he  de¬ 
termined  to  go  to  Salem  after  all.  Perhaps  he  felt  that 
if  he  were  to  be  persecuted  for  his  beliefs,  he  might  as 
well  be  working  for  the  church  that  wanted  him.  But 
this  was  the  very  church  from  which  the  governor  was 
trying  to  exclude  him.  To  Salem  he  went,  therefore, 
and  there  he  continued  for  about  two  vears  more, 
preaching  and  teaching,  and  disputing  constantly  with 
the  government. 

Some  of  the  government's  objections  to  Roger  Wil¬ 
liams  would  seem  very  foolish  nowadays ;  but  one  of  these 
was  very  clear,  and  more  important.  The  courageous 
minister  told  the  people  plainly  that  the  courts  had  no 
right  to  punish  men  for  breaking  the  first  four  of  the 
Ten  Commandments.  If  a  person  broke  one  of  these, 
he  said,  that  person  was  guilty  before  God,  and  the 
Church  perhaps,  but  not  before  the  courts. 

What  Roger  Williams  meant,  of  course,  was  that  no 
government  has  a  right  to  interfere  in  Church  affairs ; 
and  in  this  we  know  that  he  was  quite  correct.  But 
Massachusetts  did  not  agree  with  him,  and  the  govern¬ 
ment  and  the  courts  sternly  objected.  Every  time  the 


32  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

General  Court  met,  it  reproved  the  young  minister,  or 
summoned  him  to  appear  before  it,  or  commanded  him 
to  cease  making  his  statements. 

EXILE,  PRIVATION,  AND  A  NEW  HOME 

Matters  came  to  a  crisis  in  1635,  only  four  years 
after  Williams  had  come  to  the  new  world.  On  ad¬ 
vice  of  other  ministers  of  the  colony,  a  decree  of  banish¬ 
ment  was  issued  against  bold  Roger  Williams.  The 
decree  began  with  these  words :  “Whereas,  Mr.  Roger 
Williams,  one  of  the  elders  at  Salem,  hath  broached 
and  divulged  divers  new  and  dangerous  opinions 
against  the  authority  of  the  magistrates  ...  it  is  there¬ 
fore  ordered,”  et  cetera.  He  was  to  leave  the  colony 
within  six  weeks. 

So  Roger  Williams  went  into  exile  for  his  faith.  He 
fled  into  the  wilderness,  and  experienced  a  terrible 
“fourteen  weeks,  in  which  he  knew  not  what  bed  and 
board  did  mean,"  though  some  of  the  time  he  was  be¬ 
friended  by  the  Indians.  After  his  situation  had  become 
almost  desperate,  he  and  four  or  five  faithful  companions 
reached  the  Seekonk  (Blackstone)  River  and  sailed  on 
it  until  they  landed  at  a  rock  that  nowadays  is  held  in 
high  honor  on  this  account.  A  little  later  he  journeyed 
farther,  and  reached  a  spring  of  clear,  fresh  water.  As 

i 

an  evidence  of  his  steadfast  faith,  he  called  his  new 
home  Providence — which  is  the  city  of  Providence, 
Rhode  Island,  of  to-day. 

Here  Williams  bought  land  from  the  Indians,  and 
established  the  colony  that  afterwards  became  the  State 


PATHFINDER  OF  RELIGIOUS  FREEDOM  33 


of  Rhode  Island.  After  a  few  years  he  received  a 
charter  from  the  English  king,  but  soon  after  his  arri¬ 
val  at  Providence  he  and  twelve  friends  drew  up  a 
covenant  by  which  the  colony  was  to  be  governed.  This 
covenant  contained  four  very  impressive  words.  “We 
whose  names  are  here  underwritten,”  says  the  compact, 
“promise  to  obey  the  will  of  the  majority,  but  only  in 
civil  things.” 


PERFECT  FREEDOM  AT  LAST 

Those  four  words,  “only  in  civil  things,”  made 
Rhode  Island  different  from  all  other  colonies  and 
states  established  before  that  time  in  the  history  of  the 
world.  Roger  Williams  and  his  freedom-loving  friends 
were  willing  to  obey  one  another  when  they  made  civil 
laws  for  the  colony,  but  they  absolutely  refused  to 
promise  obedience  in  religious  matters.  Each  man  was 
to  be  completely  free  in  religion.  Church  and  State, 
as  we  say  now,  were  to  be  absolutely  separate.  They 
have  remained  separate  in  Rhode  Island  from  Roger 
Williams’  time  on,  and  now  are  separate  in  each  of  the 
forty-eight  states  of  this  land. 

This  first  free  colony  early  became  a  place  of  refuge 
for  persecuted  and  oppressed  persons  from  the  other 
colonies.  A  famous  woman,  Anne  Hutchinson, 
banished  by  Massachusetts,  found  a  refuge  in  Rhode 
Island.  Several  noted  men,  whose  beliefs  were  not 
satisfactory  to  the  Massachusetts  authorities,  followed 
her,  and  numerous  men  whose  ideas  of  government 
were  considered  wild  and  unsafe  soon  came,  also.  All 


34 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


of  these  were  welcomed ;  they  were  required  to  obey 
the  civil  law,  but  in  religious  affairs  they  were  left  com¬ 
pletely  free  to  serve  God  just  as  they  thought  right. 

A  COLONY  FOUNDED  ON  FREEDOM 

Roger  Williams’  Rhode  Island  became  one  of  the 
foremost  colonies  of  America  in  its  love  of  liberty.  It 
was  the  first  to  pass  laws  against  slavery,  and  the  first 
to  declare  independence  from  Great  Britain ;  this  was  in 
May,  1776,  about  two  months  before  the  national 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  adopted. 

In  all  its  history  since,  Rhode  Island  has  been  known 
as  a  state  that  has  loved  freedom  for  itself  and  its  peo¬ 
ple,  and  that  has  preserved  freedom  for  other  states  and 
other  peoples.  Much  of  the  credit  for  this  attitude  is 
due  to  the  brave  life  of  the  Roger  Williams  of  three 
hundred  years  ago  who  was  a  champion  of  freedom 
for  the  hearts  of  all  men. 

Suggestion:  Refer  to  such  similarities  between  Roger 
Williams’  life  and  that  of  William  Penn  as  the  persecution 
in  England,  the  purchase  of  land  from  the  Indians,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  colony  granting  freedom  of  worship. 

Books  Suggested 

Straus,  “Roger  Williams,  the  Pioneer  of  Religious  Liberty.” 

Carpenter,  Elton,  Sparks,  Biographies  of  Roger  Williams. 

Faunce,  “Pioneers  of  Religious  Liberty  in  America,” 
Chapter  on  Williams. 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  RED  MEN  35 


LESSON  V 

THE  FIRST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  RED  MEN 

Read:  Psalm  91. 

Memory  Verse:  “Thou  shalt  not  be  afraid  for  the  terror  by 
night, 

Nor  for  the  arrow  that  flieth  by  day.” — Ps.  91:  5. 

A  NOTABLE  BOOK  OF  LONG  AGO 

In  the  year  1663  a  book  was  printed  at  Cambridge, 
Massachusetts,  which  was  greeted  with  delight  by  the 
Puritans,  and  which  has  been  held  in  high  honor  by 
Americans  ever  since.  Of  this  book  one  of  the  Puritan 
leaders  spoke  with  enthusiasm.  “Behold,  ye  Ameri¬ 
cans,”  said  he,  “the  greatest  honor  that  ever  ye  were 
partakers  of — the  Bible  printed  here  at  our  Cambridge, 
And  it  is  the  only  Bible  that  ever  was  printed  in  all 
America  from  the  foundation  of  the  world!” 

But  to  us  the  remarkable  fact  about  this  Bible  is 
not  so  much  that  it  was  the  first  edition  of  the  Scrip¬ 
tures  printed  in  this  country  as  the  fact  that  it  is 
written  in  the  language  of  a  tribe  of  Indians  now  ex¬ 
tinct,  a  language  that  is  no  longer  spoken  or  read.  Nor 
was  it  the  only  book  printed  in  that  language.  It  was 
preceded  by  an  Indian  catechism,  and  by  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  in  the  tongue  of  the  red  men ;  and  it  was  followed 
three  years  later  by  an  Indian  grammar. 

Each  of  these  books  of  historic  importance  was  pre¬ 
pared  by  John  Eliot  who,  for  nearly  sixty  years,  was 
minister  of  the  church  of  Roxbury,  Massachusetts,  and 


36 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  first  “apostle  of  the  Indians.”  His  Indian  books, 
it  is  true,  cannot  be  read  now.  The  Indians  for  whom 
he  wrote  are  gone,  but  the  name  of  John  Eliot  lives  on. 

John  Eliot  is  honored  to-day  as  a  man  of  deep  learn¬ 
ing,  as  one  of  the  first  missionaries  of  modern  times  to 
a  heathen  people,  as  this  country's  first  well-known 
worker  among  the  Indians,  and  as  the  forerunner  of 
America’s  hosts  of  home  missionaries — men  who,  for 
hundreds  of  years,  have  combined  religious  zeal  with 
most  exalted  patriotism. 

FROM  PERSECUTION  TO  FREEDOM 

In  England,  where  John  Eliot  was  born  in  1604,  he 
had  been  willing  to  labor  as  minister,  but  he  was  a 
Puritan  and  lived  in  the  days  of  the  tyrannical  Arch¬ 
bishop  Laud,  under  whom  no  one  could  preach  in 
safety  other  doctrines  than  those  of  the  Church  of 
England.  Eliot,  therefore,  followed  the  example  of 
many  other  persecuted  Puritans,  and  in  1631,  the  same 
year  in  which  Roger  Williams  reached  Boston,  found 
in  Massachusetts  a  land  where  a  Puritan  could  serve 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  his  own  conscience. 
For  the  new  colony  there  was  governed  absolutely  by 
the  Puritans,  as  we  learned  in  our  study  of  Roger 
Williams. 

First  of  all  the  important  deeds  of  John  Eliot  in  the 
new  world  was  his  preparation  of  “The  Bay  Psalm 
Book,”  in  association  with  two  other  religious  leaders, 
and  the  hymn  book  was  published  in  1640,  the  first  book 
of  any  sort  printed  on  this  side  of  the  ocean. 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  RED  MEN  37 


As  minister  of  the  Roxbury  church,  Eliot  early  came 
into  contact  with  the  Indians  of  the  colony.  Soon  he 
felt  a  consuming  desire  to  preach  to  them.  For  two 
years  he  spent  much  of  his  time  in  studying  their 
language.  Then,  regardless  of  dangers  from  the  arrows 
and  tomahawks  of  the  savages,  he  gave  the  best  part  of 
his  later  life  to  the  evangelization  of  the  red  man,  and 
so  became  famous  as  a  missionary  to  the  Indians. 

“god  IS  WITH  ME - 1  SHALL  GO  ON” 

It  was  in  1646  that  the  apostle  to  the  Indians 
preached  his  first  sermon  to  the  Indians.  He  delivered 
this  Christian  message  to  an  Indian  assembly  at  Nonan- 
tum,  now  Newton.  Almost  from  the  beginning  of  his 
labors  he  met  with  opposition,  both  from  the  sachems 
or  chiefs  and  from  the  powwows  or  medicine  men. 
Often  his  life  was  in  great  danger.  Yet  he  continued 
preaching  fearlessly  to  the  Indians.  “God  is  with  me," 
he  told  the  hostile  savages.  “I  fear  not  all  the  sachems 
in  the  country !  I  shall  go  on  in  my  work ;  touch  me 
if  you  dare !” 

Great  was  the  Indians’  fear  of  their  powwows.  These 
medicine  men  were  believed  to  have  a  close  connection 
with  invisible  forces,  and  to  possess  magic  powers  of 
curing  disease.  Some  of  the  men  to  whom  Eliot 
preached,  asked  him  a  question  one  day  that  showed 
their  dependence  on  the  medicine  men.  “If  we  once 
begin  praying  to  God,"  they  said,  “we  must  give  up 
our  powwows ;  and  then  when  we  are  sick  or  wounded, 
who  will  heal  us?” 


38 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


OPPRESSED  BY  THE  SACHEMS 

Eliot  encouraged  the  Indians  both  to  leave  their  pow¬ 
wows  and  also  to  oppose  the  power  of  their  chiefs,  which 
was  unlimited.  These  sachems  had  the  right  by  tribal 
law  to  take  for  themselves  whatever  possessions  of  the 
Indians  they  fancied.  When  the  missionary  urged  the 
red  men  to  plant  their  fields  and  raise  corn,  they  ob¬ 
jected.  ‘‘What  is  the  use  of  our  laboring  all  summer," 
they  asked,  “just  to  raise  corn  for  the  sachem  to  seize 
for  his  own  use?” 

Gradually,  however,  they  realized  that  God  makes  no 
man  to  be  a  slave,  and  that  they  had  rights  of  their  own. 
Then  they  began  to  speak  for  themselves  ;  and  then,  un¬ 
fortunately,  the  sachems  joined  the  powwows  in  violent 
opposition  to  the  Indians’  white  friend.  Some  of  the 
red  men  who  trusted  Eliot  were  banished  by  their 
chiefs,  and  some  were  even  put  to  death. 

Nevertheless,  the  number  of  Christians  or  “praying 
Indians”  slowly  increased.  Eliot  was  tireless  in  his 
work  for  them.  Year  after  year  he  traveled  into  the 
wilderness  to  carry  his  messages  of  Christian  good  will. 
Often  he  suffered  great  privation,  as  on  one  famous 
trip  into  the  wilds. 

On  this  journey  he  encountered  bad  weather  con¬ 
tinuously,  and  of  course,  he  had  no  protection  from  the 
rain.  From  one  Tuesday  to  the  following  Saturday  he 
was  never  dry.  At  night  he  pulled  off  his  boots,  wrung 
the  water  out  of  his  stockings,  put  them  on  again,  and 
went  to  sleep,  if  he  could.  The  rivers  were  over  their 
banks,  swollen  by  the  heavy  rains,  and  in  fording  these 


THE  FIRST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  RED  MEN  39 


he  was  drenched  again  and  again.  Yet  this  trip  ended 
as  many  another  hardship  ends;  when  at  last  he  reached 
home,  he  was  in  perfect  health,  and,  besides,  he  had  the 
consciousness  of  a  hard  duty  faithfully  done. 

A  SACHEM  WHO  SURRENDERED 

One  of  the  most  bitter  opponents  of  Eliot  was  Wan- 
nalancet,  sachem  at  Wamesit.  Yet  even  he  at  last  sur¬ 
rendered  to  the  fearless  preacher  of  Christ,  and  this  is 
the  way  he  announced  his  conversion.  Rising  before 
the  assembly  to  which  the  missionary  had  been  preach¬ 
ing,  in  stately  Indian  fashion  he  announced:  “All  my 
life  have  I  been  used  to  pass  up  and  down  in  an  old 
canoe.  Yet  now  you  wish  me  to  leave  my  old  canoe, 
and  embark  in  a  new  one.  Hitherto  I  have  been  un¬ 
willing,  but  now  I  surrender  myself  to  your  advice.  I 
enter  into  a  new  canoe,  and  do  promise  hereafter  to 
pray  to  God.” 

Wannalancet  proved  to  be  a  faithful  and  consistent 
worshiper  of  God.  Many  of  his  people,  offended  at 
his  stand,  left  him,  but  he  remained  true  to  the  religion 
of  his  white  friend  and  of  the  “praying  Indians.” 

MARTYRS  FOR  THE  WHITE  MAN^  SAKE 

To  the  Puritans,  and  to  their  friends  in  England  who 
helped  pay  the  costs  of  Eliot’s  work,  a  reward  came  in 
the  cruel  days  of  King  Philip’s  war  between  the  Indians 
and  the  English.  At  this  time  the  number  of  “praying 
Indians’’  was  about  thirty-six  hundred,  and  the  fear- 


40 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


less  and  unselfish  life  of  Eliot  had  won  the  respect  and 
esteem  of  very  many  more.  When  their  fellow  Indians 
made  war  on  the  colonists,  therefore,  most  of  the 
Indians  in  that  part  of  New  England  came  to  the  aid 
of  the  English.  Instead  of  having  around  them  a  blood¬ 
thirsty  nation  of  foes,  who  might  have  exterminated 
the  colonists,  the  English  found  themselves  surrounded 
by  red  men  who  were  friends — friends  because  of  the 
work  of  John  Eliot,  the  Christian  missionary. 

Bitter  was  the  cost  to  the  Indians,  however,  of  their 
faithfulness  to  the  white  men.  In  that  terrible  war  they 
suffered  so  severely  and  such  numbers  of  them  were 
killed  that  the  nation  never  recovered.  Before  long 
they  were  quite  extinct.  As  history  shows  plainly,  they 
gave  their  lives  for  the  protection  of  the  white  man. 

FAITHFUL  TO  THE  END 

After  the  war,  Eliot  was  in  feeble  health  the  greater 
part  of  the  time.  Ele  could  no  longer  go  among  those 
of  his  Indian  friends  who  were  yet  alive,  nor  could  he 
even  preach  to  the  white  men.  So  he  did  what  he  could. 
He  sent  out  into  the  neighborhood,  and  persuaded  many 
families  to  send  their  Negro  slaves  to  his  home  once  a 
week  that  he  might  talk  to  them.  His  last  years  were 
spent  in  this  simple  service  for  Christ — teaching  the 
black  man,  as  he  had  taught  the  red  man,  of  the  peace¬ 
ful  and  uplifting  ways  of  Jesus,  the  Master  of  all  men 
who  believe  in  him. 

Suggestion:  The  white  man’s  friendship  to  the  Indian  has 
been  rewarded  often  by  freedom  from  Indian  troubles;  com- 


AMERICA'S  PIONEER  PRESBYTERIAN 


41 


pare  the  experience  of  Penn.  Tell  of  the  beginning  of  Negro 
slavery  in  this  country,  and  speak  of  the  missionary  work  of 
to-day  among  the  colored  people. 

Book  Suggested 

Sparks,  “John  Eliot.” 


LESSON  VI 

AMERICA’S  PIONEER  PRESBYTERIAN 

Read:  Acts  5:  17-29. 

Memory  Verse:  “In  God  have  I  put  my  trust,  I  will  not  be 
afraid.”— Ps.  56:  11. 

IN  AMERICA,  YET  IN  JAIL  FOR  PREACHING 

In  old  New  York,  in  the  year  1707,  a  strange  incident 
occurred.  Two  itinerant  ministers  had  been  caught 
in  the  very  act  of  preaching,  had  been  arrested  for  this 
“crime,”  and  were  brought  before  the  governor,  a  man 
who  was  a  member  of  the  Church  of  England. 

“How  dare  you  preach  in  my  colony  without  my 
license?”  the  haughty  governor  demanded. 

Calmly  the  spokesman  of  the  two  accused  men  replied 
that  they  had  licenses  to  preach  in  Virginia  and  Mary¬ 
land,  and  that  the  new  religious  toleration  law  in 
England  made  such  licenses  good  in  all  the  English 
colonies,  including  New  York. 

But  the  governor  would  not  be  appeased  by  any  such 
argument.  “The  Act  of  Toleration  applies  only  to 
England,  not  to  the  American  plantations,”  he  insisted, 
“so  your  certificates  are  good  only  in  Virginia  and 


42 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Maryland.  As  for  my  colony,  you  shall  not  spread  your 
pernicious  doctrines  here  !” 

Nevertheless,  so  courageously  and  so  convincingly 
did  the  two  ministers  plead  their  cause,  that  at  length 
the  governor  offered  to  give  them  their  liberty  on  one 
condition.  They  could  go  free,  he  said,  if  they  would 
pledge  themselves  to  do  no  more  preaching  in  his 
colony. 

The  brave  response  of  the  persecuted  ministers  was 
like  a  famous  reply  made  by  two  early  apostles,  “If 
your  lordship  requires  it,”  said  their  spokesman,  “we 
will  give  security  for  our  behavior,  but  to  give  bond  to 
preach  no  more  in  your  excellency’s  government,  when 
invited  by  any  people  to  do  so,  we  neither  can  nor  dare 
do.” 

To  a  man  with  the  intolerant  spirit  of  the  governor, 
only  one  course  was  left;  he  sent  the  ministers  to  jail. 
For  a  number  of  weeks  they  lay  in  prison,  martyrs  to 
the  cause  of  religious  freedom  in  America  for  which 
Roger  Williams  himself  had  suffered.  When  finally  the 
leader  of  the  two  was  brought  to  trial,  he  presented  his 
case  so  clearly  that  under  the  law  the  jury  could  do 
nothing  but  acquit  him,  which  it  proceeded  to  do;  yet 
it  required  him  to  pay  the  costs  of  the  case,  amounting 
to  eighty-three  pounds. 

A  MARTYR,  AND  A  MAN  OF  ACHIEVEMENTS 

A  year  after  his  unjust  imprisonment  this  brave  man 
died.  Undoubtedly  the  privations  of  his  prison  life 
hastened  his  death,  for  when  he  died  he  was  only  fifty 


AMERICA’S  PIONEER  PRESBYTERIAN 


43 


years  old.  Yet  what  a  life  of  accomplishment  he  had 
lived !  For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century  this  man, 
Francis  Makemie,  the  pioneer  of  American  Presby¬ 
terianism,  had  lived  a  life  of  toil  for  himself  and  of 
inspiration  for  others. 

Makemie  was  not  the  first  Presbyterian  minister  in 
the  land,  but  he  was  the  one  who  established  its  first 
strong  churches,  and  who  gave  it  such  power  that  in 
time  it  developed  into  the  magnificent  Presbyterianism 
that  now  stretches  from  New  England  to  Florida  and 
from  western  Canada  to  Mexico,  and  that  is  blessing 
the  nations  of  the  whole  world  with  its  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  enterprises. 

When  Francis  Makemie,  a  Presbyterian  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  from  Ireland  to  America,  came  to  the  colonies, 
Presbyterians  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic  were  few  and 
scattered.  The  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  which  had 
come  to  Massachusetts  in  1628,  and  with  which  John 
Eliot,  the  “apostle  of  the  Indians,”  was  connected,  was 
largely  Presbyterian,  but  most  of  it  in  time  became 
merged  with  the  Congregational  Church.  Other  Pres¬ 
byterians  came  later  from  England,  Ireland,  France, 
and  Holland,  most  of  them  settling  in  New  York,  Penn¬ 
sylvania,  Virginia,  and  Maryland. 

By  1680  there  were  large  numbers  of  Presbyterians 
in  America,  but  they  had  no  ministers.  They  could 
have  family  worship  without  ministers,  of  course,  and 
they  could  hold  religious  services  in  schoolhouses, 
but  they  had  no  one  to  baptize  their  babies  or  celebrate 
the  Lord’s  Supper  in  regular  form.  Some  of  them, 


44 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


therefore,  sent  to  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Ireland 
for  help.  The  Presbytery  of  Laggan,  in  Ireland,  then 
commissioned  Francis  Makemie  as  a  minister  to  the 
needy  Presbyterians  of  the  American  colonies.  This 
was  in  1682. 

Makemie  was  educated  at  the  University  of  Glasgow, 
in  Scotland,  having  been  led  to  Christ  as  a  boy  of  four¬ 
teen  by  an  earnest  school-teacher.  On  this  side  of  the 
ocean  he  worked  for  a  short  time  in  the  Barbados,  an 
island  of  the  British  West  Indies;  then  he  came  to  our 
own  colonies.  In  1684  he  organized  his  first  church,  at 
Snowhill,  Maryland,  and  this  became  the  center  from 
which  he  worked  for  twenty-six  years.  He  lived  at 
Accomac,  Maryland,  but  traveled  far  and  wide,  visiting 
the  people  and  establishing  churches. 


AN  ITINERANT  APOSTLE  TO  AMERICANS 

The  self-sacrificing  life  of  Makemie  was  devoted  to 
giving  the  gospel  to  as  many  communities  as  he  could 
reach.  Resolutely  and  self-sacrificingly,  he  journeyed 
from  place  to  place;  for  six  years  he  had  no  one  place 
that  he  could  call  his  home,  so  seldom  did  he  linger  long 
at  any  one  point.  Always  he  was  pushing  on,  to  help 
the  needy  people  somewhere  else. 

Much  of  Makemie’s  time  was  spent  on  horseback, 
and  during  most  of  his  nights  he  slept  in  rough  log 
cabins,  or  out  of  doors  beneath  the  stars.  Amid  perils 
of  savages,  perils  of  storm  and  swollen  rivers,  perils  of 
the  wilderness,  and  perils  of  persecution,  he  traveled 
from  New  York  to  the  Carolinas,  gathering  the  people 


AMERICA’S  PIONEER  PRESBYTERIAN 


45 


for  preaching  wherever  opportunity  offered.  Cheered 
by  the  welcome  of  the  eager  colonists,  Makemie  was  un¬ 
daunted  and  persevering,  whatever  hopeful  circum¬ 
stance  or  unexpected  hardship  might  meet  him. 

In  order  to  avoid  interference  from  governors  and 
magistrates,  Makemie  erected  a  building  for  Rehoboth 
church  on  his  own  land.  He  wrote  a  catechism,  which 
was  attacked  by  an  opponent,  but  Makemie  wrote  so 
spirited  a  defense  of  his  book  that  this  was  praised  by 
the  same  Puritan  leader  in  Massachusetts  who  about 
this  time  called  on  the  colonists  (whom  he  called  “Ye 
Americans")  to  honor  John  Eliot’s  translation  of  the 
Bible  into  the  Indian  tongue. 

“come  over  and  help  us" 

Constantly  Makemie  was  sending  earnest  appeals  to 
England  and  Ireland  for  help.  He  felt  that  the  needs 
of  the  colonists  were  too  many  and  too  great  for  any 
one  man  to  meet.  “Sundry  places,"  he  wrote  at  one 
time,  “are  crying  to  us  for  ministers."  Liberal  gifts 
came  from  England,  his  churches  grew  strong,  new 
churches  were  organized,  but  of  ministers  to  serve  them 
there  were  practically  none  except  himself. 

At  length  Makemie  determined  to  carry  his  appeal  to 
England  in  person.  His  journey  across  the  water  was 
more  successful  than  his  letters  had  been,  for  when  he 
returned  he  was  accompanied  by  money  to  support  more 
workers,  and  also  by  two  more  ministers.  These  were 
Rev.  George  McNish,  a  Scotchman,  and  Rev.  John 
Hampton,  an  Irishman.  These  two  men  joined  heartily 


46 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


in  his  labors.  It  was  John  Hampton  who  shared  Ma- 
kemie's  later  imprisonment  in  New  York. 

The  Presbyterian  churches  soon  grew  so  rapidly  in 
number  and  in  strength  that  after  a  time  a  permanent 
organization  was  made  that  bound  these  close  together. 
This  was  a  presbytery,  which  was  formed  at  Phila¬ 
delphia  in  1706,  and  which  chose  Makemie  as  its 
moderator. 

WHAT  GOD  HAS  WROUGHT  IN  AMERICA 

Ten  years  later  there  were  four  presbyteries.  In 
1717  these  presbyteries  formed  a  synod.  After  seventy 
years,  in  1789,  America's  Presbyterians  had  become  so 
numerous  that  a  General  Assembly  was  organized. 
Like  the  first  presbytery,  the  synod  and  the  General 
Assembly  held  their  first  meetings  in  Philadelphia. 

When  Makemie  closed  his  life  there  were  only  about 
1,500  Presbyterians  in  America,  but  when  the  first 
General  Assembly  met,  the  number  had  increased  to 
18,000.  A  century  later  the  number  connected  with  the 
General  Assembly  organized  in  1789  had  become  775,- 
000,  and  now  it  is  almost  two  million.  The  one  pres¬ 
bytery  of  Makemie’s  time  has  become  more  than  three 
hundred  presbyteries. 

Besides  this  General  Assembly,  which  is  that  of  “The 
Presbyterian  Church  in  the  United  States  of  America,” 
this  country  has  assemblies  or  synods  of  ten  ocher  Pres¬ 
byterian  denominations.  In  all  these,  with  the  larger 
Church  of  which  we  have  been  speaking,  there  is  now  a 
total  membership  in  this  country  of  more  than  three 


A  PASTOR  WHO  ROUSED  NEW  ENGLAND 


47 


million  Presbyterians,  besides  a  host  of  Presbyterian 
converts  from  heathen  religions  and  from  Catholicism 
in  foreign  lands. 

All  this  mighty  force  of  Christians  is  a  direct  result 

of  the  unselfish  and  perilous  labors  of  Francis  Makemie, 

• 

the  pioneer  among  American  Presbyterian  ministers. 

Suggestion:  Review  the  settlement  of  the  colonies,  particu¬ 
larly  as  regards  religion;  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
were  settled  by  Puritans  persecuted  in  England;  Maryland, 
by  persecuted  English  Catholics;  Pennsylvania,  largely  by 
persecuted  English  Quakers;  Rhode  Island,  by  religious 
leaders  and  their  followers  persecuted  in  Massachusetts;  Geor¬ 
gia,  by  English  debtors  and  persecuted  Protestants  from 
Austria;  and  New  York,  by  emigrants  from  Holland  whose 
Church  was  of  the  Presbyterian  type. 

Books  Suggested 

Miller,  “Heroes  of  the  Church.” 

Thompson,  “Presbvterians.” 


LESSON  VII 

A  PASTOR  WHO  ROUSED  NEW  ENGLAND 

Read:  Neh.  8:  1-10. 

Memory  Verse:  “In  quietness  and  in  confidence  shall  be 
your  strength.”— Isa.  30:  15. 

A  SINGULAR  BOY  AND  A  NOTABLE  MAN 

In  1703,  the  same  year  that  saw  the  birth  of  John 
Wesley,  there  was  born  at  East  Windsor,  Connecticut, 
a  remarkable  boy  who  became  a  remarkable  man,  per¬ 
haps  the  most  notable  man  that  America  ever  has 


48 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


known.  Not  all  of  his  astonishing  deeds  as  a  boy  are 
of  the  kind  that  boys  of  to-day  ought  to  do,  if  they 
could,  yet  they  are  both  interesting  and  inspiring;  and 
not  all  of  his  great  achievements  as  a  man  are  either 
possible  or  desirable  to  men  of  to-day,  yet  they  have 
helped  decidedly  to  make  America  the  mighty  nation. of 
freedom-loving  and  God-fearing  people  that  it  is  to-day. 
This  mighty  man  of  God  was  Jonathan  Edwards. 

Jonathan  Edwards  came  from  an  old’ Puritan  family, 
and  was  the  son  and  grandson  of  ministers.  When  only 
a  small  boy  he  joined  his  sisters,  with  some  young  men 
outside  the  family,  in  studying  under  his  learned  father. 
At  the  age  of  six  he  began  to  study  Latin  and  other  dif¬ 
ficult  subjects;  and  already  he  had  learned  to  act  on  a 
good  suggestion  of  his  father,  a  suggestion  that  he  write 
out  his  thoughts  on  paper  so  that  he  could  test  them 
and  remember  them  better. 

By  this  and  other  means  he  became  a  deep  and  ac¬ 
curate  thinker  while  yet  a  very  small  boy.  When  he  was 
ten,  one  of  his  friends  told  him  that  he  did  not  believe 
we  could  live  after  we  died,  either  in  heaven  or  in  hell ; 
for  this  was  at  a  time  when  people  thought  more  about 
hell  than  they  do  now.  Jonathan  believed  otherwise, 
and  he  argued  so  carefully  and  so  powerfully  that  he 
convinced  that  boy  that  people’s  souls  do  live  forever. 
That  was  a  hard  thing  to  do,  but  this  remarkable  boy 
did  it. 

When  Jonathan  was  twelve,  he  wrote  an  excellent 
and  interesting  essay  on  the  habits  of  the  wood  spider, 
and  before  he  was  thirteen  he  had  advanced  so  fast  that 


A  PASTOR  WHO  ROUSED  NEW  ENGLAND  49 


he  went  to  college.  His  college  was  Yale,  which  at  this 
time  did  its  work  in  three  different  towns — New 
Haven,  Wethersfield,  and  Saybrook.  Young  Edwards 
studied  at  New  Haven.  The  president  lived  in 
one  of  the  other  towns,  and,  because  the  president  was 
away,  the  teaching  at  New  Haven  was  done  mostly  by 
tutors. 

Under  these  conditions  it  was  hard  to  learn  much, 
but  Edwards  loved  knowledge  so  intensely  that 
he  worked  with  all  his  might  and  mind.  He  studied 
every  subject  down  to  the  bottom,  and  mathematics, 
science,  and  astronomy  he  mastered  through  and 
through.  In  fact,  he  studied  so  well  that  when  he  was 
graduated,  before  he  was  seventeen,  he  received  the 
highest  honor  in  his  class.  Indeed,  he  was  the  only 
member  of  the  class  who  received  any  honor  whatever. 

WHEN  BOYS  BUILT  A  “DEN”  AS  A  CHURCH 

All  this  time  Jonathan  was  not  only  deeply  studious; 
he  was  also  deeply  religious.  When  about  eight  years 
old,  he  was  greatly  impressed  by  his  father’s  preaching, 
and  at  once  he  began  showing  his  interest  in  Christian 
things.  He  prayed  five  times  every  day,  talked  to  his 
boy  friends  about  religion,  and  persuaded  some  of  them 
to  build  a  “den,"  or  hut,  in  a  retired  spot,  and  in  this 
the  boys  held  many  religious  meetings.  After  a  few 
months,  however,  his  early  religious  interest  gradually 
wore  away. 

But  while  he  was  in  college,  when  he  was  about  fif¬ 
teen,  Jonathan  had  a  long  talk  with  his  father  about 


50  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

religion,  and  from  this  time  he  was  a  real  Christian. 
“I  used  to  be  struck  with  terror  when  I  saw  a  thunder¬ 
storm  rising,"  he  said  afterwards,  “but  now  ...  it  re¬ 
joiced  me.  I  felt  God,  at  the  first  appearance  of  the 
thunderstorm,  and  used  to  fix  myself  in  order  to  view 
the  clouds,  and  see  the  lightnings  play,  and  hear  the 
majestic  and  awful  voice  of  God’s  thunder.” 

As  soon  as  young  Edwards  left  college,  he  deter¬ 
mined  to  become  a  minister,  and  before  he  was  nineteen 
he  was  licensed  to  preach.  For  a  time  he  preached  to  a 
new  Presbyterian  church  in  New  York  City.  About 
this  time  he  formed  some  resolutions  for  his  life,  and 
wrote  these  down.  There  were  seventy  of  these  interest¬ 
ing  life  purposes.  Here  are  four  of  them  : 

“Resolved,  never  to  do  any  manner  of  thing,  whether 
in  soul  or  body,  less  or  more,  but  what  tends  to  the 
glory  of  God. 

“Never  to  lose  one  moment  of  time,  but  to  improve  it 
in  the  most  profitable  way  I  possibly  can. 

“To  live  with  all  my  might,  while  I  do  live. 

“Always  to  do  what  I  shall  wish  I  had  done  when  I 
see  others  do  it.” 

“to  live  with  all  my  might” 

Very  well  indeed  did  Jonathan  Edwards  hold  to  these 
resolutions  throughout  his  later  life.  For  the  next  few 
years,  while  studying  theology,  preaching,  and  teaching 
at  Yale,  he  worked  with  all  his  strength.  His  health 
always  was  poor,  yet  ordinarily  he  studied  thirteen 
hours  a  day.  He  took  daily  exercise  as  a  sacred  duty, 


A  PASTOR  WHO  ROUSED  NEW  ENGLAND  51 


and  ate  as  little  food  as  possible.  He  made  himself  do 
much  horseback  riding;  yet  always  he  took  pen  and 
ink  and  paper  with  him.  If  a  good  thought  came  to  him 
while  he  was  riding,  he  got  off  his  horse,  and  wrote  the 
thought  down,  copying  it  out  carefully  when  he  reached 
home. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-four,  Edwards  became  the  as¬ 
sociate  of  his  grandfather  in  the  pastorate  of  the  church 
at  Northampton,  Massachusetts,  and  he  remained  in 
this  church  twenty-three  years,  until  long  after  his 
grandfather  had  died.  Here  Edwards  preached  power¬ 
ful  and  helpful  sermons,  and  he  saw  the  church  slowly 
grow.  Yet  this  was  a  time  of  general  carelessness 
about  the  religious  life,  both  in  America  and  in  Eng¬ 
land,  and  there  was  much  evil  in  Massachusetts. 

America’s  first  great  revival 

One  year  Edwards  preached  some  sermons  on  the 
power  of  God,  and  on  Luther’s  favorite  subject,  salva¬ 
tion  by  faith.  Almost  at  once  a  mighty  revival  of  re¬ 
ligion  broke  out  in  his  church  and  town.  Within  the 
next  six  months,  practically  every  person  in  Northamp¬ 
ton  over  fourteen  years  of  age  was  a  Christian. 

But  the  greatest  revival  that  America  ever  had  known 
came  five  years  later,  in  1740.  Edwards  was  preaching 
the  power  of  God  with  all  his  might,  and  the  same  great 
subject  was  being  preached  in  other  colonies  by  such 
ministers  as  Rev.  Gilbert  Tennent,  Rev.  William  Ten- 
nent,  and  the  famous  George  Whitefield.  Everywhere 
God’s  power  was  shown  in  the  leading  of  men  and 


52 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


women,  boys  and  girls,  to  Christ.  Whitefield  in  his 
travels  went  to  Massachusetts,  to  see  Jonathan 
Edwards,  of  whose  remarkable  life  and  preaching  he 
had  heard,  and  from  Edwards’  pulpit  he  preached  five 
sermons.  This  year  an  immense  number  of  new 
Christians  once  more  was  added  to  Edwards’  church. 

That  God  honored  the  revivals  of  Edwards’  time  is 
shown  by  the  impressive  results  of  the  work  of  White- 
field,  of  the  Tennents,  and  of  Edwards  himself.  Prob¬ 
ably  25,000  persons  joined  the  churches  of  New  England 
in  those  years,  though  New  England’s  population  was 
only  about  250,000.  In  less  than  twenty  years  more 
than  150  new  Congregational  churches  were  organized, 
and  the  number  and  membership  of  Baptist  and  Pres¬ 
byterian  churches  were  largely  increased. 

MISSIONARY  TO  INDIANS  AND  COLLEGE  PRESIDENT 

Like  John  Eliot,  Jonathan  Edwards  became  a  mis¬ 
sionary  to  the  Indians.  Ten  years  after  the  second  re¬ 
vival  in  his  church  he  removed  to  Stockbridge,  Massa¬ 
chusetts,  to  be  pastor  there,  and  also  to  preach  to  the 
neighboring  Indians.  He  continued  to  be  successful  in 
his  preaching  to  the  white  people,  but  the  Indians  were 
so  badly  corrupted  by  the  liquor  that  evil  white  men 
sold  them  that  it  seemed  impossible  to  convert  many  of 
them  to  “the  white  man’s  religion.” 

After  seven  years  of  this  work,  Edwards’  fame  as  a 
preacher  and  thinker  was  so  great  that  he  was  elected 
president  of  Princeton,  the  Presbyterian  college  in  New 
Jersey.  A  brilliant  future  seemed  to  be  opening  before 


A  PASTOR  WHO  ROUSED  NEW  ENGLAND  53 


him  as  a  college  president,  but  Edwards  had  been  in¬ 
augurated  only  five  weeks  when  he  died.  He  and  two 
of  his  daughters,  one  of  them  the  wife  of  Rev.  Aaron 
Burr,  who  preceded  Edwards  as  president,  had  been 
inoculated  with  smallpox,  for  this  was  before  the  days 
of  vaccination,  and  smallpox  was  a  much  dreaded  dis¬ 
ease.  As  a  result  of  this  severe  treatment,  Jonathan 
Edwards  and  Mrs.  Burr  died,  within  a  few  days  of  each 
other.  One  of  Mrs.  Burr’s  two  children  was.  the  Aaron 
Burr  who  later  became  Vice  President  of  the  United 
States. 

A  LIFE  “to  THE  GLORY  OF  GOD” 

Jonathan  Edwards  died  when  he  was  only  fifty-five 
years  old,  yet  in  his  short  life  he  had  become  famed  in 
America  and  Europe  as  an  eloquent  preacher,  deep 
thinker,  sincere  teacher,  and  forceful  writer.  His 
printed  sermons  and  lectures  had  great  power  for  good 
during  scores  of  years  after  lie  was  gone,  and  even  to¬ 
day  men  and  women  look  back  on  him  as  one  of  the 
greatest  builders  of  the  Church  of  Christ  that  the  world 
has  known  since  the  Reformation. 

Suggestion:  Trace  the  ancestry  and  the  posterity  of 
Edwards,  a  mighty  line  of  men  and  women,  the  fruit  of  Chris¬ 
tian  education  and  Christian  consecration.  Edwards’  father 
was  a  clergyman,  his  grandfather  a  merchant,  and  his  great¬ 
grandfather  a  clergyman  in  England.  Of  his  descendants  of 
seven  generations  (up  to  about  1905),  ten  were  college  presi¬ 
dents,  two  presidents  of  law  schools,  two  presidents  of  theo¬ 
logical  seminaries,  three  presidents  of  railroads,  one  a  bank 
president,  two  prominent  scientists,  one  a  prominent  author 
(Winston  Churchill),  one  a  Vice  President  of  the  United 


54 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


States,  and  one  the  wife  of  a  President  of  the  United  States 
(Theodore  Roosevelt).  See  the  leading  article  in  Munsey’s 
Magazine,  June,  1906. 


Books  Suggested 

Sparks,  “Jonathan  Edwards.” 

Allen,  Biography  of  Jonathan  Edwards. 

Walker,  “Ten  New  England  Leaders”:  Biography  of 
Edwards. 


LESSON  VIII 

A  PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  WHO  STARTED  A 

REVIVAL 

Read:  Acts  17:  1-12. 

Memory  Verse:  “Being  ready  always  to  give  answer  to 
every  man  that  asketh  you  a  reason  conce.rning  the  hope  that 
is  in  you.” — I  Peter  3:  15. 

A  BOY  WHO  WOULD  BE  GREAT 

Probably  the  world  never  has  known  another  so 
strange  a  combination  of  astonishing  boyhoods  as  those 
of  Jonathan  Edwards  and  of  his  grandson,  Timothy 
Dwight.  Astounding  as  were  the  exploits  of  Edwards 
as  a  boy,  these  were  even  surpassed  by  those  of  his  noted 
grandson,  and  the  work  of  Dwight  as  a  man  was  only 
less  helpful  to  America  and  to  Christianity  than  that 
of  his  famous  grandfather. 

Timothy  Dwight’s  early  years  form  a  story  that  is 
hard  to  believe,  in  spite  of  its  having  been  accurately 
reported.  Born  in  1752,  at  Northampton,  Massachu¬ 
setts,  where  his  grandfather  and  great-great-grand- 
father  had  been  pastors,  Timothy  began  to  study  books 


PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  WHO  STARTED  REVIVAL  55 


almost  as  soon  as  he  could  talk.  At  one  lesson  he 
learned  the  alphabet,  and  before  he  was  four  years  old 
he  could  read  the  Bible  easily. 

Soon  afterwards,  while  listening  to  the  conversation 
of  certain  noted  Americans  of  his  time  who  came  to 
call  on  his  father,  and  while  listening  also  to  his  father’s 
comments  on  these  men,  Timothy  formed  a  life  pur¬ 
pose.  This  purpose  was  to  be  “equal  to  those  whose 
talents  and  character  he  had  heard  extolled.”  From 
this  time  to  his  dying  day  Timothy  Dwight  held  with 
unflinching  will  to  that  high  ambition,  a  tireless  pur¬ 
pose  to  become  worthy  of  fame. 

STUDYING  LATIN  BY  STEALTH 

When  Timothy  started  to  school,  at  the  age  of  six, 
his  father  told  him  that  he  was  too  young  to  study 
Latin,  but  the  boy  was  so  eager  to  learn  that  while 
his  schoolmates  were  at  play,  he  took  their  Latin  books 
from  their  desks,  and  studied  these.  Long  before  he 
was  eight,  he  had  learned  Lily’s  Latin  Grammar 
thoroughly.  When  his  father  found  him  out,  he  was 
permitted  to  go  on,  and  before  he  was  nine  he  could 
read  Latin  and  Greek  almost  as  well  as  English. 

For  about  three  years  the  boy  was  out  of  school.  His 
mother,  who  thought  it  better  for  him  just  then  to  study 
history  and  geography  than  to  toil  over  Greek  and 
Latin,  taught  him  at  home,  so  while  he  was  nine,  ten, 
and  eleven  he  reveled  in  numerous  books  of  geography, 
travel,  and  ancient  and  modern  history.  Then  he  went 
on  with  his  Latin  and  Greek. 


56 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Like  his  grandfather,  Timothy  entered  Yale  College 
at  the  age  of  thirteen.  But  unlike  Jonathan  Edwards, 
he  knew  so  much  Greek  and  Latin  that  he  did  not  need 
to  study  much  during  his  first  two  years  in  college.  In¬ 
stead,  therefore,  he  used  to  do  a  great  deal  of  card-play¬ 
ing,  and  to  sit  up  late  at  night,  attending  parties  and 
midnight  suppers.  At  the  end  of  his  sophomore  year  he 
saw  how  foolish  he  had  been,  became  an  earnest  Chris¬ 
tian,  and  settled  down  to  hard  work. 

During  his  junior  and  senior  years  at  college,  and  for 
a  time  later  as  a  tutor  in  Yale,  Timothy  Dwight  studied 
as  perhaps  no  college  man  ever  studied  before  or  since. 
In  those  days  it  was  a  custom  for  Yale  students  to 
attend  chapel  exercises  at  5.30  every  morning,  but  this 
was  not  early  enough  for  Dwight  to  begin  the  day ! 
He  would  be  up  early  enough  to  read  one  hundred  lines 
of  Homer  in  Greek  before  the  chapel  service  opened. 
At  this  time,  we  are  told  by  those  who  knew  him,  he 
studied  fourteen  hours  a  day. 

TOO  AMBITIOUS  TO  BE  CAREFUL 

Even  then  the  young  man  was  not  satisfied.  He 
wanted  to  get  still  more  studying  done.  So  he  did 
something  that  hurt  all  his  later  life.  He  determined 
to  save  the  time  that  he  had  been  giving  to  physical 
exercise.  To  do  this  safely,  as  he  thought,  he  decided 
to  stop  eating  so  much,  so  that  he  would  need  no  ex¬ 
ercise.  Accordingly,  he  ate  less  and  less,  until  at  length 
he  found  that  he  could  make  a  meal  on  eighteen  bites  of 
food.  How  foolish  this  was,  he  was  soon  to  learn.  In 


PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  WHO  STARTED  REVIVAL  57 


a  few  months  he  looked  like  a  skeleton,  his  health  broke 
down,  and  he  had  to  leave  Yale  and  go  home. 

At  home  Dwight’s  physician  gave  him  a  much  needed 
scolding.  The  young  man  took  his  doctor’s  scolding 
and  his  advice,  and  in  time,  with  good  food,  much  rest, 
and  a  great  deal  of  outdoor  exercise,  he  recovered  much 
of  his  health.  From  that  time  on  he  seems  to  have  been 
sensible,  and  even  while  working  intensely  hard,  he  took 
enough  proper  food  and  sufficient  wholesome  exercise. 
Yet  all  his  life  he  was  subject  to  terrible  headaches,  and 
his  eyes  were  so  weak  that  never  again  could  he  use 
them  for  more  than  fifteen  minutes  during  an  entire 
day ;  he  was  almost  blind. 

A  DETERMINATION  THAT  OVERCAME  A  HANDICAP 

An  ordinary  man  would  have  found  this  handicap 
sufficient  reason  for  living  a  life  of  comparative  ease 
thereafter,  but  Timothy  Dwight  was  not  an  ordinary 
man.  He  employed  other  persons  to  read  to  him,  he 
thought  intensely,  and  he  cultivated  his  memory  until 
he  seemed  to  forget  nothing  that  ever  he  heard.  He 
hired  men  to  write  his  notes,  sermons,  lectures,  and 
books,  and,  because  this  was  before  the  time  of  short¬ 
hand,  he  thought  so  carefully  that  he  could  keep  two 
and  even  three  amanuenses  busy  taking  his  dictation  at 
one  time. 

By  this  careful  and  ceaseless  labor,  Dwight  became 
not  only  well  informed,  but  one  of  the  very  best  in¬ 
formed  men  of  his  century  in  politics,  industry,  educa¬ 
tion,  and  religion.  The  tales  that  are  told  of  his  in- 


58 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


formation  on  almost  any  subject  are  enough  to  make 
us  all  ashamed  of  our  own  slowness  to  learn,  and  of 
the  ease  with  which  we  forget. 

During  his  life  of  sixty-five  years,  Dwight  was  at 
different  times  tutor  at  Yale,  chaplain  in  the  army 
during  the  Revolution,  member  of  the  Massachusetts 
legislature,  pastor  of  the  Congregational  church  at 
Greenfield,  Connecticut,  and  president  of  Yale.  One  of 
the  most  impressive  stories  told  of  him  is  in  connection 
with  his  first  years  as  Yale’s  president. 

WHEN  CHRISTIANITY  WAS  ASSAILED 

Just  then  religious  interest  in  America,  and  at  Yale, 
was  low.  When  France  came  to  the  aid  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  colonies  in  the  Revolution,  she  brought  with  her 
much  of  the  infidelity  that  was  seen  during  her  own 
Revolution.  Deism,  atheism,  and  other  forms  of  belief 
or  disbelief  opposed  to  Christianity,  rapidly  swept  over 
our  young  nation.  As  a  consequence,  even  some  of  our 
ablest  men,  for  a  time,  began  to  feel  that  Christianity 
was  not  true  at  all ;  they,  too,  commenced  believing 
that  the  Christian  religion  was  merely  a  superstition, 
to  be  accepted  only  by  ignorant  people  who  knew  no 
better. 

At  Yale  most  of  the  college  students  were  of  this 
class  of  men.  When  Dwight  went  there  as  president  in 
1795,  he  found  the  young  men  calling  themselves,  not 
by  their  own  names,  but  by  the  names  of  noted  atheists. 
This  was  to  show  their  admiration  for  these  unbelievers 
in  Christianity.  Tom  Jones,  for  instance,  called  him- 


PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  WHO  STARTED  REVIVAL  59 


self  Tom  Paine,  John  Smith  was  known  as  Voltaire, 
and  others  bore  other  anti-Christian  names.  Some  of 
these  young  men,  who  were  sure  that  they  knew  all 
about  Christianity  that  was  worth  knowing — and  they 
thought  that  this  was  very  little — one  day  as  a  joke 
suggested  that  the  subject  for  their  next  senior  class 
debate  be  this :  “Are  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  the  Word  of  God?” 

WISE  YOUNG  MEN  WHO  LEARNED  THEIR  IGNORANCE 

To  their  astonishment,  President  Dwight  accepted 
the  subject,  and  told  the  wise  seniors  that  all  of  them 
who  cared  to  do  so  might  take  the  negative  side,  and 
do  their  best  to  overthrow  the  authority  of  the  Bible. 
After  due  preparation  the  debate  was  held,  with  most 
of  the  class  upholding  the  negative.  The  president 
listened  attentively  to  all  that  they  had  to  say,  and  then 
began  calmly  to  discuss  their  arguments.  Kindly,  clearly, 
and  distinctly,  he  pointed  out  mistake  after  mistake  that 
they  had  made,  and  in  a  short  time  he  had  shown  the 
dumbfounded  young  men  that  they  really  knew 
practically  nothing  about  this  important  subject. 

Then  came  the  climax.  President  Dwight,  drawing 
on  his  immense  fund  of  information  and  on  his  deep 
love  of  God,  proceeded  to  prove  to  his  students  that  the 
Bible  certainly  is  the  Word  of  God;  that  what  it  says  is 
true;  and  that  there  is  salvation  offered  to  men  only  in 
the  Jesus  of  the  Scriptures,  It  was  a  proof  that  could 
not  be  contradicted. 

One  by  one,  as  their  president  talked,  the  young  men 


60  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

became  convinced  that  what  he  said  was  true.  They 
had  come  into  the  room  anti-Christian,  they  left  it 
Christian.  The  story  was  carried  to  other  students, 
into  the  town,  and  into  surrounding  country,  and  as  a 
result  many  a  long  year  passed  before  anyone  again 
dared  to  say  that  Christianity  was  not  a  religion  worthy 
of  the  belief  and  the  service  of  men  and  women  of  the 
highest  intellectual  power. 

“the  power  of  god  unto  salvation” 

A  revival  broke  out;  not  one  revival,  indeed,  but 
many.  Yale  became  one  of  the  most  godly  colleges 
in  all  the  land.  From  1800  to  *1837  seventeen  distinct 
revivals  of  religion  visited  the  institution.  During 
that  first  movement  of  this  kind,  the  number  of  pro¬ 
fessing  Christians  in  the  college  increased  from  twelve 
to  nearly  ninety,  including  practically  every  student. 
Forty-five  of  the  young  men  determined  at  once  to  enter 
the  Christian  ministry.  The  entire  institution  was  filled 
with  the  power  of  Christianity. 

That  religious  upheaval,  known  as  “the  great  revival 
of  1800”  spread  to  other  states,  and  led  to  numberless 
conversions,  to  widespread  home  missionary  work,  to 
the  founding  of  countless  Sunday  schools,  to  the  or¬ 
ganization  of  Bible  societies  and  tract  societies,  and  to 
the  system  of  outdoor  religious  gatherings  called  camp 
meetings  that  have  led  tens  of  thousands  of  persons 
closer  to  the  Christ  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments, 
and  to  the  Christ  of  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Timothy 
Dwight, 


AN  ITINERANT  BISHOP  OF  AMERICA 


61 


Suggestion:  Tell  some  of  the  stories  of  Dwight’s  early  days, 
found  in  Sparks’s  biography. 

Books  Suggested 

Tyler,  “Three  Men  of  Letters.” 

Sprague,  “Annals  of  the  American  Lutheran  Pulpit.” 


LESSON  IX 

AN  ITINERANT  BISHOP  OF  AMERICA 

Read:  Acts  2:  37-42. 

Memory  Verse:  “Preach  the  word;  be  urgent  in  season,  out 
of  season.” — II  Tim.  4:2. 

A  FAMOUS  MAN  AND  HIS  FASCINATING  DIARY 

Few  persons  nowadays  keep  diaries  very  faithfully, 
but  there  was  a  time  when  it  was  the  custom  to  do  so. 
In  those  days  men  and  women  were  very  likely  to 
keep  a  “journal”  of  their  lives,  sometimes,  perhaps, 
with  the  thought  that  after  they  were  gone,  the  world 
might  eagerly  read  what  they  had  written.  One  such 
journal  that  has  come  down  to  us  is  well  worth  looking 
into,  for  it  was  written  by  a  man  famous  in  his  own 
time  and  even  more  famous  since.  This  man,  Francis 
Asbury,  lived  a  long  life  of  thrilling  adventure,  repeated 
peril,  and  vast  accomplishment. 

Before  we  look  into  this  fascinating  life  story,  let  us 
learn  something  about  the  man  who  wrote  it.  He  was 
born  in  1745,  in  Staffordshire,  England,  went  to  school 
to  a  teacher  who  beat  him  so  cruelly  that  the  boy  re¬ 
fused  to  go  back  to  him ;  and  later  became  apprenticed 


62  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

to  the  saddler’s  trade,  which  he  followed  for  seven 
years. 

When  he  was  only  a  small  boy,  Asbury  began  to 
think  about  God,  and  by  the  time  he  was  fifteen,  he  was 
an  earnest  Christian.  Even  before  he  was  fifteen,  he 
had  heard  of  some  Methodists  in  a  near-by  town,  and 
had  asked  his  mother  about  them.  She,  though  not  a 
Methodist,  praised  these  followers  of  the  Wesleys  so 
highly  that  Asbury  went  over  to  see  some  of  them. 
In  the  neighboring  town  he  was  deeply  impressed  by 
the  interesting  sermons  of  the  Methodist  preachers,  and 
by  the  hearty  singing  of  their  people,  for  he  himself 
always  liked  to  sing. 

A  PREACHER  AT  SIXTEEN 

With  this  beginning,  it  is  not  surprising  that  the  boy 
Asbury  became  a  local  preacher  for  the  Methodists  at 
the  age  of  sixteen.  When  he  was  twenty-two  he  be¬ 
came  an  itinerant,  or  traveling,  preacher.  When  he 
was  twenty-six  he  felt  so  strongly  the  need  of  Methodist 
preachers  in  the  American  colonies  that  in  that  year  he 
persuaded  John  Wesley  to  send  him  to  this  country. 

Asbury  sailed  in  1771  from  Bristol  (the  city  famous 
for  the  preaching  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield),  whose 
Methodist  people  found  him  so  poor  that  for  his  jour¬ 
ney  they  gave  him  a  suit  of  clothes  and  ten  pounds  in 
money.  Even  so,  he  and  his  companion,  Richard 
Wright,  fared  poorly  on  the  ship,  for  they  had  not 
known  enough  about  sea  voyages  to  take  beds  with 
them,  as  was  customary  in  those  days,  and  so  the  two 


AN  ITINERANT  BISHOP  OF  AMERICA  63 

young  men  were  compelled  to  get  what  comfort  they 
could  with  two  blankets  and  only  hard  boards  for  beds. 

On  the  ship,  in  spite  of  seasickness,  Asbury  preached 
to  all  who  would  listen,  and  so  he  continued  to  do  as 
long  as  he  lived.  In  America  he  went  everywhere 
preaching  the  gospel.  From  the  beginning  to  the  end 
of  his  long  career,  he  was  subject  to  repeated  attacks 
of  illness,  yet  these  seemed  never  to  lessen  his  deter¬ 
mination  to  “preach  the  word  ...  in  season,  out  of 
season.” 

In  America,  Asbury  became  what  the  great  Wesley 
was  in  Britain,  the  head  of  the  nation’s  Methodism. 
Wesley  soon  made  him  the  first  American  Methodist 
bishop  and  under  his  superintendence  the  Methodist 
societies  grew  into  a  mighty  Methodist  Church. 

SICK,  COLD,  WET,  YET  WORKING 

Now  read  some  of  the  interesting  entries  in  Asbury' s 
“Journal,”  beginning  soon  after  his  arrival  in  this 
country,  and  observe  how  tirelessly  he  labored,  and  how 
under  God’s  blessing  his  work  grew : 

“April  16.  I  rode  through  a  heavy  rain  to  Phila¬ 
delphia,  and  preached  the  next  morning.” 

“April  30.  I  preached  to  a  great  number  of  people 
under  the  jail  wall”  [Chester]. 

On  May  25  Asbury  went  to  Burlington,  where  he 
preached  in  the  evening,  “though  very  sick,  and  next 
day  while  still  very  ill  visited  a  prisoner  sentenced  to 
death.” 

“June  1.  Preached  this  morning  at  5  o’clock.” 


64  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

“June  23.  Though  very  weak,  weary,  wet  and  low, 
while  it  rained  very  hard  I  preached.” 

“Oct.  19  [Trenton].  A  drunken  sailor  had  locked 
up  the  courthouse,  so  I  was  obliged  to  preach  in  a 
schoolhouse.”  Some  time  before  this,  Asbury  reports 
he  went  to  Winchester,  New  York,  to  preach  in  the 
courthouse  there,  but  the  bad  behavior  of  the  drunken 
“keeper”  caused  much  confusion.  In  the  afternoon, 
being  given  warning  that  the  courthouse  was  closed  to 
him,  he  preached  in  an  upper  room  at  the  tavern. 

“Nov.  1  [Chester].  I  intended  to  preach  in  the 
courthouse,  but  it  would  not  contain  half  the  people, 
so  I  stood  at  the  door,  and  the  people  without.” 

“Nov.  19.  A  poor  unhappy  man  abused  me  much 
on  the  road ;  he  cursed,  swore  and  threw  stones  at  me. 
But  I  found  it  my  duty  to  talk  to  him  and  show  him  his 
danger.” 

WHEN  PEOPLE  WERE  EAGER  TO  GO  TO  CHURCH 

“Dec.  6.  The  house  had  no  windows  or  doors,  the 
weather  was  very  cold.  .  .  .  Putting  a  handkerchief  over 
my  head,  I  preached;  and  after  an  hour’s  intermission 
(the  people  waiting  all  the  time  in  the  cold),  I  preached 
again.”  How  eager  to  hear  the  gospel  those  early 
Americans  must  have  been ! 

“Dec.  7.  My  travels  have  been  perhaps  as  much  as 
300  miles  in  about  six  weeks.” 

“Feb.  21.  I  rode  six  or  seven  miles  to  preach  .  .  . 
but  never  felt  colder  weather.  .  .  .  However,  after 
preaching  to  a  few  people,  I  returned.”  “Only  a  few 


AN  ITINERANT  BISHOP  OF  AMERICA  65 

people,'1  yet  he  was  willing  to  journey  in  the  bitter  cold, 
in  order  to  minister  to  the  few ! 

“March  24.  I  went  about  twenty  miles,  through  wet 
weather  and  bad  roads.  The  night  was  very  dark.11 

“July  14  [1774].  I  have  now  been  sick  ten  months, 
and  many  days  closely  confined;  yet  I  have  preached 
about  300  times;  and  rode  near  2,000  miles  in  that 
time;  though  very  frequently  in  a  high  fever." 

Of  all  his  life  a  similar  story  could  be  recorded.  No 
doubt  much  of  Asbury1  s  illness  was  due  to  exposure 
from  repeated  sleeping  in  the  woods  without  sufficient 
coverings.  Yet  he  seems  never  to  have  thought  of 
abandoning  his  work  because  of  its  danger. 

A  MAN  OF  FAITH,  AND  A  MAN  OF  WORKS 

“April  28  [1777].  I  rode  fifty  miles  in  going  and 
coming  to  preach  that  sermon,  but  hope  it  was  not  al¬ 
together  labor  lost."  Asbury  was  a  man  of  constant 
faith  and  persevering  prayer.  One  of  his  fellow 
ministers  said  to  him :  “He  prayed  the  best,  and  prayed 
the  most,  of  any  man  I  ever  knew." 

“Jan.  13  [1793].  I  have  now  had  the  opportunity 
of  speaking  in  Washington  [a  very  new  city  at  that 
time]  ;  most  of  the  people  attended  to  hear  ‘this  man 
that  rambles  through  the  United  States.1  " 

“Dec.  20  [1794,  when  Asbury  was  nearly  50  years 
old].  It  snowed  as  powerfully  [to-day]  as  it  rained 
yesterday.  However,  we  set  out  for  Salem  about 
9  o’clock,  and  forded  two  creeks,  but  the  third 


we  swam. 


66 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


“bishop  to  all  America” 

So  he  journeyed,  year  after  year,  from  Maine  to 
Georgia,  to  Kentucky,  to  Ohio,  and  back  to  New  York, 
swinging  annually  around  his  immense  circle.  Once 
on  the  prairies  of  Ohio,  Asbury  met  a  man  who,  after 
the  free  custom  of  the  frontier,  asked  genially,  “Where 
are  you  from,  stranger?” 

The  bishop’s  response  was  half  humorous  but  wholly 
true.  “From  Boston,  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Balti¬ 
more,  or  almost  any  .place  you  please,’’  he  replied. 

Tireless  zeal  and  unflagging  energy  marked  the 
forty-five  years  of  Bishop  Asbury’ s  labors  in  America. 
He  visited  Massachusetts  twenty-three  times  after  he 
was  forty-five  years  old,  New  York  State  fifty-six 
times,  New  Jersey  sixty-two  times,  Pennsylvania 
seventy-eight  times,  Virginia  eighty-four  times,  and 
the  Carolinas,  Georgia,  and  the  western  states  and  terri¬ 
tories  many  times  each.  This  “bishop  that  could  not 
get  tired”  traveled  altogether  in  this  country  270,000 
miles,  every  four  years  going  almost  far  enough  to 
circle  the  earth,  preached  an  average  of  a  sermon  a 
day,  and  ordained  more  than  four  thousand  ministers. 

Rapid  growth  of  the  Methodist  Church  in  America 
was  a  natural  result  of  the  persevering  acti\r ity  and  con¬ 
secration  of  Bishop  Asbury.  His  journal  under  a  July 
date  in  1807  records  that  after  thirty-six  years  there 
were  144,000  Methodists  in  this  country,  though  Eng¬ 
land  itself  after  seventy-seven  years  of  work,  mostly 
under  John  Wesley,  had  only  150,000;  and  this  was  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  America  had  only  5,000,000  in- 


AN  ITINERANT  BISHOP  OF  AMERICA 


67 


habitants,  while  Great  Britain  had  six  times  as  many. 
And  when  Asbury  died,  nine  years  later,  the  number 
of  Methodist  Church  members  in  the  United  States  was 
not  150,000  but  214,000.  Mightily  had  God  blessed  the 
labors  of  his  faithful  servant. 

FAITHFUL  TO  THE  END 

A  fitting  close  did  Bishop  Asbury  give  to  his  illus¬ 
trious  life.  On  Sunday,  March  24,  1816,  he  preached 
for  nearly  an  hour  at  Richmond,  Virginia,  though  he 
was  suffering  from  an  advanced  stage  of  tuberculosis. 
All  week  after  that  Sunday,  until  Friday,  he  traveled; 
but  on  Saturday  overpowering  weakness  forced  him  to 
keep  to  his  bed.  Next  day,  at  the  usual  hour  for  morn¬ 
ing  service,  he  called  the  household  to  come  into  his 
room  for  family  prayers.  A  few  hours  later  he  passed 
peacefully  from  his  earthly  labors  to  the  activities  of 
heaven. 

Suggestion:  Many  a  story  worth  retelling  is  in  Asbury 's 
“Journal.” 

Books  Suggested 

Tipple  (Editor),  “The  Heart  of  Asbury’s  Journal.”  (In¬ 
sufficient  of  itself.) 

Janes,  “The  Character  and  Career  of  Francis  Asbury.” 

Briggs,  “Bishop  Asbury.” 


68  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

LESSON  X 

FROM  LAV/  OFFICE  TO  CHRISTIAN  PULPIT 

Read:  I  Kings  18:20-39. 

Memory  Verse:  “Behold,  now  is  the  acceptable  time;  be¬ 
hold,  now  is  the  day  of  salvation.” — II  Cor.  6:  2. 

A  MEETING  THAT  NO  ONE  HAD  CALLED 

One  evening,  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  one  of 
the  most  unusual  meetings  in  the  memory  of  the  people 
of  Adams,  New  York,  was  held  in  the  Presbyterian 
church  of  the  town.  No  one  had  called  the  meeting, 
and  it  had  no  leader,  yet  the  church  was  crowded. 
Everyone  knew  why  they  all  had  come  together,  how¬ 
ever.  It  was  because  an  astounding  thing  had  hap¬ 
pened  in  Adams  that  day.  Charles  Finney  had  been 
converted.  This  was  the  startling  news  that  had 
brought  this  unannounced  assembly  into  the  church. 

Everybody  in  Adams  knew  Charles  Finney.  He  was 
a  promising  young  lawyer,  a  clever  sportsman  skilled 
in  use  of  the  rifle  and  in  sailing  a  boat  on  the  lake, 
and  a  favorite  with  the  town's  young  people,  but  a 
scornful  opponent  of  Christianity.  He  sang  in  the 
church  choir,  indeed,  and  was  even  its  leader,  but 
always  his  influence  was  against  the  church,  and  he 
was  persistent  in  his  ridicule  of  persons  foolish  enough 
to  believe  in  such  things  as  faith  and  salvation  and 
prayer.  So  strong  had  his  influence  become,  in  fact, 
that  even  his  pastor’s  faith  in  the  power  of  prayer  was 
becoming  weakened.  “There  is  no  use  in  praying  for 


FROM  LAW  OFFICE  TO  CHRISTIAN  PULPIT  69 


the  conversion  of  Finney,”  the  minister  had  asserted. 
“And  my  choir  members  never  will  become  Christians 
so  long  as  that  man  is  living  in  this, town.” 

And  now  it  was  said  that  this  unbelieving  young 
lawyer  had  become  a  Christian !  Not  only  that,  but  he 
had  actually  been  trying  to  get  other  persons  to  accept 
Christ.  That  very  day  this  scorner  of  Christianity  had 
gone  to  several  of  his  best  friends,  and  urged  them  to 
turn  to  Christ  for  salvation;  moreover,  it  was  reported 
that  two  or  three  actually  had  accepted  his  advice,  and 
at  once  had  come  to  the  Saviour.  He  who  before  had 
persecuted  Christ  now  was  preaching  the  faith — this 
was  the  astonishing  word  that  had  spread  like  wild¬ 
fire  through  the  town,  and  that  had  attracted  this 
leaderless  throng  to  the  church. 

HOW  A  PERSECUTOR  BECAME  A  BELIEVER 

After  the  congregation  had  sat  there  in  silence  for  a 
time,  waiting  for  what  might  come,  at  length  the  young- 
lawyer  himself  arose  in  his  place.  Quietly  and  humbly, 
but  quite  frankly,  he  told  the  meeting  just  what  had 
happened  to  him.  When  he  had  finished,  everyone 
present  knew  the  whole  story.  And  this  is  what  they 
knew : 

Finney  as  a  boy  had  lived  in  the  frontier  region  of 
northern  New  York,  and  had  heard  little  gospel  preach¬ 
ing  until  he  was  almost  a  grown  man.  Never  had  he 
read  the  Bible  until  after  he  began  to  study  law.  Then 
the  many  references  in  his  law  books  to  the  laws  of 
Moses  aroused  his  interest,  and  he  bought  a  copy  of 


70 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  Scriptures.  Almost  at  once  he  recognized  the  Bible 
as  the  Word  of  God,  and  soon  he  realized  that  he  needed 
the  salvation  which  he  had  been  ridiculing. 

Yet  the  young  man  was  unwilling  to  give  himself 
unreservedly  to  God.  Instead,  he  tried  to  keep  out  of 
the  way  of  the  minister  and  of  other  Church  people, 
for  of  course,  seeing  them  would  remind  him  of  the 
duty  that  he  did  not  want  to  perform.  Still,  he  could 
not  keep  away  from  his  own  thoughts. 

On  the  day  before  the  momentous  meeting,  in  the 
morning,  Finney  was  walking  along  the  street  when 
suddenly  he  thought  that  he  saw  Christ  himself  before 
him,  inviting  him  to  become  a  Christian.  Finney 
stopped  dead  still,  stood  motionless  a  few  moments, 
and  then  yielded.  He  determined  to  accept  Christ  that 
day,  “or  die  in  the  attempt,”  as  he  expressed  it. 

All  that  morning  he  spent  in  the  woods,  fighting 
against  his  will.  Once,  as  he  fought,  it  occurred  to 
him  that  what  was  keeping  him  from  Christ  was  fear 
that  the  woods  were  full  of  people  ready  to  ridicule 
him,  as  he  himself  had  ridiculed  other  persons  who  were 
trying  to  follow  Christ.  So  at  once  he  shouted,  at  the 
top  of  his  voice :  “I  will  not  leave  this  place  though  all 
the  men  on  earth  and  all  the  devils  in  hell,  should 
surround  me!” 

Then  he  began  to  pray,  and  soon  he  rose  from  his 
knees  a  Christian,  and  not  only  a  Christian  but  also  a 
man  determined  to  give  up  the  practice  of  law  and  be¬ 
come  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  Immediately  he  began  to 
prepare  to  preach.  He  closed  up  his  law  work  at  once, 


FROM  LAW  OFFICE  TO  CHRISTIAN  PULPIT  71 

f 

and  went  out  on  the  streets  to  lead  his  friends  to 
Christ 

This  was  the  story  that  the  leaderless  meeting  had 
assembled  to  hear,  and  it  heard  the  recital  with  intense 
interest.  When  it  was  finished  the  pastor  arose,  and 
in  genuine  repentance  confessed  that  his  faith  had  been 
rebuked ;  after  all,  he  had  not  known  the  mighty  power 
of  God  to  save. 

LIKE  THE  TIMES  OF  WHITEFIELD 

Quietly  the  meeting  adjourned,  but  it  was  followed 
by  a  prayer  meeting  the  next  night,  and  the  night  fol¬ 
lowing,  and  every  night  for  many  weeks.  The  church 
and  town  were  deeply  stirred.  Finney  went  to  all  the 
young  people  whom  he  had  prejudiced  against  Christ, 
and  shortly  all  but  one  were  converted.  The  former 
lawyer  later  went  to  his  country  home,  and  there  led 
his  father  and  mother  to  Christ.  Soon,  from  his  home 
and  from  the  town  of  Adams  as  centers,  a  widely  ex¬ 
tended  revival  spread  over  the  entire  county. 

From  that  time  on,  for  nearly  fifty  years,  Charles  G. 
Finney  gave  himself  to  the  work  of  preaching  the 
gospel,  and  from  his  preaching  there  developed  the 
greatest  revival  of  religion  that  America  had  known 
since  the  time  of  Timothy  Dwight  and  George 
Whitefield. 

Even  before  he  was  ordained  as  a  Presbyterian 
minister,  Finney  was  a  preacher  of  the  duty  of  im¬ 
mediate  surrender  to  Christ.  While  yet  a  young  Chris¬ 
tian,  he  became  a  home  missionary  at  Evans  Mills,  a 


72 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


rough  frontier  town  of  lawless  people,  and  nearly  all 
of  them  were  converted  in  a  few  weeks. 

A  town  not  far  away  called  Sodom  was  almost  as  evil 
a  place  as  the  Sodom  of  Bible  history,  and  its  one  deeply 
religious  man  had  been  nicknamed  Lot.  Here  Finney 
preached  a  sermon  against  the  sins  of  the  people  that 
was  so  powerful  and  so  true  that  it  first  angered  his 
hearers  and  then  sobered  them;  in  a  few  minutes  the 
prayers  for  forgiveness  among  the  congregation  were 
so  loud  that  the  evangelist’s  voice  could  not  be  heard. 
Putting  “Lot”  in  charge  of  the  meeting,  Finney  went 
to  keep  another  engagement,  but  he  left  behind  him  a 
power  at  work  that  quickly  produced  a  complete  and 
permanent  change  in  the  community. 

Throughout  all  that  part  of  New  York  State  similar 
experiences  were  met.  Town  after  town  was  moved 
from  circumference  to  center.  For  months  at  a  time 
no  social  parties  were  held,  the  young  people  spending 
their  evenings  in  prayer  for  the  unconverted ;  and 
countless  conversions  were  traced  directly  back  to  such 
prayers. 

A  JOURNEY  THAT  NEVER  WAS  FINISHED 

After  two  or  three  years  of  such  work  near  home, 
Finney  had  to  go  into  Central  New  York  to  attend  a 
synod  meeting.  He  seems  never  to  have  reached  the 
synod’s  gathering,  however.  On  the  way  he  preached 
one  sermon  that  aroused  an  interest  so  great  that  he 
stayed  long  in  that  neighborhood,  preaching  the  mes¬ 
sage  that  God  gave  him.  Before  he  left  central 


FROM  LAW  OFFICE  TO  CHRISTIAN  PULPIT  73 


New  York,  three  thousand  persons  had  been  led  to 
Christ. 

After  this  the  list  of  places  in  which  the  evangelist 
held  successful  meetings  reads  like  a  roll  of  the  im¬ 
portant  cities  of  the  land.  He  led  revival  movements 
in  Auburn,  Troy,  Philadelphia,  New  York,  Rochester, 
Boston,  and  numerous  other  'cities.  At  Philadelphia 
one  sermon  excited  an  attention  so  profound  that  it  was 
preached  on  seven  successive  nights  in  seven  Phila¬ 
delphia  churches;  he  remained  in  the  city  more  than  a 
year,  with  no  falling  off  in  the  religious  interest. 

A  year  and  a  quarter  were  spent  in  New  York  City, 
where  many  leading  business  and  professional  men  ac¬ 
cepted  Christ  under  Finney’s  preaching.  At  Rochester 
the  turning  to  God  was  so  general  that  the  city  ever 
since  has  been  noted  for  its  high  moral  tone,  strong 
churches,  earnest  ministers,  and  frequent  revivals. 

Even  after  Finney  had  taken  up  other  ministerial 
work,  he  continued  his  remarkable  evangelistic  labors  as 
he  had  opportunity.  In  1849,  and  again  in  1858,  he 
went  to  Great  Britain,  where  the  gathering  of  immense 
congregations  reminded  the  people  forcibly  of  similar 
scenes  during  the  careers  of  Wesley  and  Whitefield  a 
century  before.  Finney  did  not  give  up  his  evangelistic 
work  until  1867,  when  he  was  seventy-five  years  old. 

PREACHER,  PROFESSOR,  PRESIDENT 

Charles  G.  Finney  is  famous  not  only  as  a  preacher 
but  also  as  a  teacher  and  as  a  college  president.  In 
1835,  Mr.  Finney,  then  a  Congregational  minister,  was 


74 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


called  to  be  professor  of  theology  in  a  school  in  Ohio 
that  later  became  Oberlin  College,  of  which  he  was 
president  from  1852  until  1866. 

Oberlin,  Ohio,  was  settled  by  New  England  Con- 
gregationalists,  whose  earnest  Christian  lives  and  de¬ 
votion  to  God  have  made  the  city  known  far  and  wide 
as  an  influence  for  righteousness.  Oberlin  College, 
during  all  the  time  Finney  was  connected  with  it,  and 
since,  was  an  institution  of  high  educational  attain¬ 
ments,  of  strong  Christian  spirit,  and  of  persevering 
opposition  to  such  evils  as  slavery  and  the  liquor  traffic. 
Its  fame  early  went  into  all  the  world.  Four  years  after 
Finney  went  to  Oberlin,  David  Livingstone,  the  famous 
Scotch  missionary  explorer,  sent  his  younger  brother 
from  Europe  to  the  Ohio  college  for  an  education,  and 
there  the  brother  was  graduated  in  1845. 

During  Finney’s  forty  years  at  Oberlin,  twenty  thou¬ 
sand  young  people  went  to  college  there,  and  came 
under  his  powerful  influence.  As  they  later  emigrated 
into  all  parts  of  the  West,  many  of  these  young  people 
carried  the  Christian  power  of  President  Finney  into 
Iowa,  Minnesota,  and  other  states,  while  these  regions 
were  still  territories  of  the  nation  and  still  a  savage 
wilderness. 


“now  is  the  acceptable  time” 

Yet,  in  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church,  Charles 
G.  Finney  is  more  easily  remembered,  not  for  his  real 
power  as  an  educator,  but  for  his  acknowledged  su¬ 
premacy  in  his  time  as  a  preacher  of  the  power  of  God 


AN  AMERICAN  CHRYSOSTOM 


75 


to  save  to  the  uttermost,  and  of  the  duty  of  every  un¬ 
saved  person  to  turn  to  God  at  once.  Such  preaching 
by  Finney  was  responded  to  during  his  lifetime  by  per¬ 
haps  fifty  thousand  persons,  old  and  young,  who  be¬ 
came  Christians. 

Suggestion:  After  hearing  of  Bunyan,  Wesley,  Whitefield, 
Edwards,  Dwight,  and  Finney,  it  will  be  surprising  if  some  of 
your  boys  and  girls  are  not  thinking  seriously  about  accepting 
Christ  for  themselves.  Can  you  help  them? 

Books  Suggested 

Wright,  “Charles  Grandison  Finney.” 

Hills,  Biography  of  Charles  Finney. 

“Autobiography  of  Rev.  Charles  G.  Finney.” 


LESSON  XI 

AN  AMERICAN  CHRYSOSTOM 
Read:  Jonah,  ch.  3. 

Memory  Verse:  “Let  the  wicked  forsake  his  way,  and  the 
unrighteous  man  his  thoughts;  and  let  him  return  unto  Je¬ 
hovah,  and  he  will  have  mercy  upon  him;  and  to  our  God,  for 
he  will  abundantly  pardon.” — Isa.  55:  7. 

WHEN  THE  WAR  THREATENED  PHILADELPHIA 

It  was  in  the  critical  period  of  the  war  between  the 
states.  Lee’s  army  was  pushing  its  way  from  the 
south.  It  had  reached  the  neighborhood  of  Harris¬ 
burg,  the  capital  of  Pennsylvania,  and  was  clearly  be¬ 
coming  a  menace  to  the  populous  and  wealthy  city  of 
Philadelphia.  Yet,  to  all  appearances,  Philadelphia  was 


76 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


making-  absolutely  no  preparations  for  defending  itself 
against  invasion.  The  mayor  and  the  city  fathers 
seemed  quite  heedless  of  the  city’s  danger. 

In  this  time  of  peril  there  was  one  man  in  Phila¬ 
delphia  who  saw  the  city's  danger,  and  had  the  patriot¬ 
ism  and  courage  to  take  a  fearless  step  to  protect 
the  people.  The  man  was  not  a  great  statesman  or  a 
veteran  soldier,  but  only  a  young  minister,  the  rector 
of  Holy  Trinity  Episcopal  Church.  This  young  man, 
who  was  only  four  years  out  of  school,  did  a  seemingly 
curious  thing. 

To  defend  the  city  against  the  invader,  he  called  to¬ 
gether,  not  a  body  of  citizens  able  to  bear  arms,  but 
a  body  of  ministers  like  himself.  “We  cannot  carry 
rifles,  of  course/ '  he  acknowledged,  “but  we  can 
shoulder  shovels,  and  dig  trenches.  We  can  help  throw 
up  earthworks  against  the  army  of  Lee." 

One  day,  therefore,  Philadelphia  witnessed  a  novel 
sight.  It  saw  a  company  of  more  than  one  hundred 
ministers  marching  through  the  streets  to  the  mayor's 
office,  bearing  shovels  and  spades,  and  headed  by 
the  young  Episcopal  rector,  Rev.  Phillips  Brooks, 
and  the  aged  Presbyterian  clergyman,  Rev.  Albert 
Barnes. 

Their  boldness  and  devotion  to  their  city  and  country 
served  its  purpose.  Shamed  to  a  consciousness  of  the 
city's  peril,  the  mayor  and  the  other  local  officials 
quickly  took  steps  to  save  Philadelphia  from  the  foe. 
Fortunately,  Lee  was  turned  back  before  ever  reaching- 
Philadelphia,  yet  no  one  could  have  been  sure  of  that 


AN  AMERICAN  CHRYSOSTOM 


77 


in  advance.  At  any  rate,  Phillips  Brooks  had  been 
instrumental  in  awakening  the  city  to  its  danger. 

A  PREACHER  OF  SAFETY  FOR  ALL 

During  all  his  life  Phillips  Brooks  was  doing  that 
one  thing — awakening  the  people  of  the  land  to  the 
danger  of  their  souls,  and  showing  them  how  to  secure 
protection.  As  a  preacher  of  salvation  through  Christ, 
he  was  one  of  the  most  eloquent  and  powerful  public 
speakers  that  America  ever  has  known.  He  was  not 
a  famous  evangelist,  like  Whitefield  and  Finney ;  he 
was  a  faithful  pastor  and  far-famed  pulpit  speaker, 
week  after  week,  and  vear  after  year — an  American 
Chrysostom. 

j 

Nothing  so  remarkable  has  been  told  of  the  boyhood 
of  this  famous  preacher  as  has  been  told  of  the  early 
years  of  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Timothy  Dw  ight ; 
when  he  was  a  boy,  he  had  much  the  sort  of  life  that 
any  other  American  boy  might  have  had.  He  was 
born  in  1835,  the  year  in  which  Finney  went  first  to 
Oberlin,  Ohio.  At  this  time  Phillips  Brooks’s  parents 
were  members  of  a  Unitarian  church  in  Boston ;  four 
years  later  they  became  Episcopalians,  and  Phillips 
Brooks  was  an  Episcopalian  throughout  his  life.  The 
members  of  his  family  attended  church  service  twice 
every  Sunday,  but  spent  part  of  each  Sunday  at  home 
learning  hymns,  which  they  recited  at  family  prayers 
in  the  evening.  By  the  time  Phillips  was  sixteen  years 
old  he  knew  two  hundred  hymns  by  heart,  and  these 
stayed  with  him  and  helped  him  as  long  as  he  lived. 


78 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


When  he  was  sixteen  Phillips  went  to  Harvard  Col¬ 
lege,  where  the  noted  scientist  Agassiz  and  the  famous 
poet  Longfellow  were  among  his  teachers.  After  grad¬ 
uation  he  became  an  instructor  in  the  Boston  Latin 
School,  but  he  did  not  succeed  there,  so  he  resigned 
after  one  term.  He  did  not  succeed  because  he  was  un¬ 
able  to  maintain,  discipline  among  the  older  and  more 
unruly  boys ;  Phillips  Brooks  was  not  the  sort  of  man 
who  enjoys  scolding  and  punishing,  nor  one  who  does 
it  easily;  words  of  good  cheer  and  good  will  for  every 
person  were  more  natural  to  him  through  all  his  days. 

After  he  had  been  graduated  from  the  theological 
seminary  at  Alexandria,  Virginia,  Brooks  took  charge 
of  the  small  Church  of  the  Advent  in  Philadelphia,  but 
in  two  years’  time  he  was  called  to  be  rector  of  the 
important  Holy  Trinity  Church.  In  each  of  these 
churches  he  was  listened  to  with  keen  attention,  and 
soon  he  began  to  attract  the  interest  of  persons  far 
and  near  as  an  unusually  appealing  preacher  of  the 
gospel.  The  people  back  in  his  home  city  of  Boston 
heard  of  his  success,  and  called  him,  after  eight  years 
more,  to  the  pastorate  of  Boston’s  famous  Trinity 
Church.  After  doing  a  remarkable  work  there,  in  1891 
he  became  bishop  of  all  Massachusetts. 

THEY  “  HEARD  HIM  GLADLY” 

Some  of  the  stories  told  of  Phillips  Brooks’s  power 
as  a  preacher  are  intensely  interesting.  When  he  was 
only  twenty-four  years  old,  one  of  his  professors  at 
Alexandria,  after  having  known  him  less  than  three 


AN  AMERICAN  CHRYSOSTOM 


79 


years,  said  of  him,  “That  young  man  is  fitted  for  any 
position  the  Church  has  to  give  him.” 

Brooks  served  the  Church  and  the  entire  nation  ex¬ 
cellently  in  1865  when,  following  the  death  of  the  war 
President,  he  preached  an  eloquent  funeral  sermon  on 
Abraham  Lincoln.  “I  charge  his  murder  where  it 
belongs!”  said  Brooks  in  that  famous  sermon.  “I 
charge  it  on  slavery.  I  bid  you  to  remember  where 
the  charge  belongs,  to  write  it  on  the  doorposts  of 
your  mourning  houses,  to  teach  it  to  your  wondering 
children,  and  to  give  it  to  the  history  of  these  times — 
that  all  time  to  come  may  hate  and  dread  the  sin  that 
killed  our  noblest  President.”  America  never  has  for¬ 
gotten  that  lesson ;  it  was  the  sin  of  slavery  that  caused 
our  war  between  the  states,  and  that  eventually  caused 
the  death  of  our  first  martyr  President. 

In  Boston  the  fame  of  Brooks  was  still  greater  than 
it  had  been  in  Philadelphia.  Within  a  year  after  he 
went  “back  home”  to  Boston,  his  church  there  was 
crowded  to  its  doors  every  Sunday.  No  religious 
event  in  all  Boston’s  history  had  created  such  excite¬ 
ment  as  the  preaching  of  Phillips  Brooks.  People  in 
such  large  numbers  came  from  all  parts  of  the  land  to 
hear  him  that  the  regular  attendants  at  the  church 
often  were  unable  to  obtain  admittance.  One  very  hot 
day  in  the  summer  a  stranger  from  another  city  went 
to  the  service  a  full  half  hour  before  time  for  it  to  begin 
— only  to  find  the  church  already  filled;  and  this  ex¬ 
perience  was  repeated  in  the  case  of  many  other  persons. 

Other  cities  heard  of  the  eloquence  of  the  Boston 


80 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


minister,  and  invited  him  to  visit  them  and  preach  for 
them.  Numerous  invitations  of  this  kind  were  ac¬ 
cepted,  over  all  America,  to  the  great  delight  and  profit 
of  his  hearers  everywhere  in  the  land.  One  winter 
Brooks  preached  every  noon  in  Trinity  Church,  New 
York  City,  and  every  day  his  services  were  thronged 
by  the  most  successful  business  men  of  the  nation,  men 
who  had  their  offices  in  the  noted  Wall  Street  financial 
district  of  the  city. 

Soon  after  Brooks  went  to  Boston,  a  great  Scotsman 
one  Sunday  wrote  to  his  wife  in  Great  Britain  as  fol- 
lows  :  “I  have  just  heard  the  most  remarkable  sermon  I 
have  ever  heard  in  my  life,  from  one  Phillips  Brooks. 
I  was  electrified.  I  could  have  got  up  and  shouted.' ’ 

One  year  the  noted  minister  went  to  England,  and 
there  he  preached  time  after  time  to  similarly  electri¬ 
fied  audiences.  He  was  summoned  to  Windsor  Palace, 
the  home  of  Queen  Victoria,  and  there  he  preached  to 
the  ruler  of  the  British  world.  Among  his  countless 
friends  were  many  noted  Englishmen,  including  the 
poets  Tennyson  and  Browning. 

IN  MOURNING  FOR  A  FRIEND 

Brooks  died  at  the  early  age  of  fifty-eight,  leaving 
a  land  in  consternation  of  grief.  Boston  closed  many 
of  its  offices  and  stores,  in  order  to  attend  the  funeral. 
Many  men  and  women  of  all  denominations  mourned 
the  loss  of  a  great  man  and  a  good  friend.  Of  the 
multitudes  that  flocked  to  Trinity  Church  for  the  serv¬ 
ice,  only  a  small  proportion  could  get  in ;  a  second  funeral 


AN  AMERICAN  CHRYSOSTOM 


81 


service  was  held  outdoors  in  Copley  Square,  and  this 
was  attended  by  about  fifteen  thousand  people.  In 
more  ways  than  one,  the  public  grief  at  this  time  re¬ 
minded  people  of  the  mourning  over  the  death  of 
Lincoln,  whose  life  and  work  Brooks  himself  had 
praised  with  ringing  eloquence. 

Phillips  Brooks  was  remarkable  both  as  a  preacher 
and  as  a  man.  He  was  a  man  of  humble  and  unselfish 
life,  and  of  deep  sympathy  with  men  and  women  and 
little  children.  Once,  after  he  had  preached  a  sermon 
to  comfort  people  who  were  in  sorrow  and  trouble,  one 
of  his  friends  expressed  surprise  that  the  minister  could 
speak  so  helpfully,  though  he  himself  never  had  ex¬ 
perienced  the  troubles  to  which  he  referred.  Brooks 
laughed  gently,  as  he  responded,  “But  don’t  you  sup¬ 
pose  a  man  can  put  himself  in  other  people’s  places?” 
This  is  what  Brooks  was  able  to  do;  and  because  he 
could  do  it,  and  did  do  it,  he  preached  with  unusual 
helpfulness  to  men  and  women  who  needed  to  know  of 
the  sympathy  of  other  people,  and  of  the  sympathy 
of  Christ. 


“i  HAVE  ONLY  ONE  SERMON” 

Always  it  was  of  Christ  that  Brooks  liked  best  to 
speak.  Once  in  England  he  was  asked  what  sermon  he 
would  preach  on  the  following  Sunday,  whereupon  he 
answered,  “I  have  only  one  sermon.”  He  had  many 
sermons,  indeed,  but  all  of  these  centered  around  the 
greatest  subject  that  any  man  can  preach — salvation  in 
Christ  for  everyone  who  will  receive  it. 


82 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


This  gifted  preacher  published  many  books,  and 
wrote  many  poems,  including  the  Christmas  hymn,  “O 
Little  Town  of  Bethlehem/’  He  was  a  helpful  force 
at  Harvard  College  in  his  later  life.  Yet  his  fame 
rests  less  on  all  these  achievements  than  on  his  simple 
preaching  of  what  people  believe  everywhere  and  always 
are  eager  to  hear — how  to  live  happy  and  useful  lives 
as  followers  of  Jesus,  the  Son  of  God. 

Suggestion:  Refer  to  the  brilliant  career  of  the  great  Chrys¬ 
ostom,  see  encyclopedia,  or  Schaff’s  “History  of  the  Christian 
Church,”  Vol.  Ill,  or  Lord’s  “Beacon  Lights  of  History.” 

Books  Suggested 

Allen,  “Life  and  Letters  of  Phillips  Brooks.” 

Howe,  “Phillips  Brooks.” 

Faris,  “Winning  Their  Way.”  (Especially  for  stories  of 
Brooks’s  boyhood.) 

Brooks,  A.,  “Phillips  Brooks.” 


LESSON  XII 

AN  EVANGELIST  TO  ALL  THE  WORLD 
Read:  Acts  4:  1-13. 

Memory  Verse:  “They  took  knowledge  of  them,  that  they 
had  been  with  Jesus.” — Acts  4:  13. 


THE  END  OF  A  NOTABLE  CENTURY 

Here  is  a  strange  fact :  In  1867  Charles  G.  Finney, 
because  of  old  age,  stopped  holding  revival  services, 
and  in  1867  another  American  began  holding  revival 
services,  a  man  whose  fame  as  an  evangelist  became 
almost  greater  than  even  that  of  Finney.  His  name  is 


AN  EVANGELIST  TO  ALL  THE  WORLD 


83 


Dwight  L.  Moody.  God  raised  up  Moody  to  carry 
on  the  work  that  Finney  was  laying  down.  And  here 
is  another  curious  fact :  A  man  named  Dwight  L. 
Moody  continued  his  evangelistic  labors  to  the  very  end 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  a  century  that  began  with 
the  great  revivals  of  1800  led  by  a  man  named  Dwight, 
and  that  had  revivals  all  the  way  until  its  close. 

Have  you  noticed  that  the  men  whom  we  have  been 
reading  about  so  far  have  been  ministers,  all  of  them? 
Yet  here  is  one  who  was  only  a  layman.  Moody  be¬ 
came  the  most  famous  Christian  layman  of  his  time  in 
his  work  for  Christ.  Let  us  look  back  at  his  child¬ 
hood  and  young  manhood,  and  see  the  many  interest¬ 
ing  ways  in  which  God  prepared  him  for  his  great 
work. 

TWO  RULES  WORTH  OBEYING 

Dwight  L.  Moody  was 'the  son  of  a  laboring  man, 
who  died  when  Dwight  was  four  years  old,  leaving 
the  family  penniless.  So  the  boy  received  very  little 
schooling,  and  he  had  to  go  to  work  when  very  young. 
But  poor  as  they  were,  the  children  were  well  brought 
up  by  their  fine  mother.  She  led  them  to  obey  two  ex¬ 
cellent  rules :  First,  never  to  speak  faultfinding  words 
about  their  neighbors,  even  when  these  neighbors  were 
living  in  comfort,  while  they  themselves  were  almost 
starving.  Second,  always  to  keep  their  promises,  how¬ 
ever  hard  these  might  be  to  keep. 

One  winter,  when  Dwight  was  only  ten  years  old, 
he  agreed  with  a  neighbor  to  work  for  room  and  board, 
while  he  was  going  to  school.  The  neighbor  gave  him 


84 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


such  very  poor  board  that  at  length  Dwight  went  home. 
He  told  his  mother  that  for  nineteen  successive  meals 
he  had  been  given  nothing  to  eat  except  corn-meal  mush 
and  milk.  But  his  mother  reminded  the  boy  of  his 
promise  to  work  for  this  man  and  when  she  learned 
that  his  food,  while  monotonous,  was  quite  enough  for 
his  needs,  she  persuaded  him  to  return  to  the  neighbor 
and  fulfill  his  unpleasant  contract. 

When  Dwight  was  about  seventeen  years  old,  after 
much  hard  work  near  home,  he  went  to  Boston.  There 
his  uncle  offered  him  a  job  in  his  shoe  store,  on  several 
conditions.  One  of  these  was  that  the  young  man 
would  attend  his  uncle’s  church  and  Sunday  school. 
Dwight  accepted  these  conditions,  and  from  this  time 
forward  he  was  always  deeply  interested  in  Church  and 
Sunday-school  work. 

One  day,  some  months  later,  Dwight’s  Sunday-school 
teacher  called  on  him  at  the  store,  and  urged  him  to 
become  a  Christian.  Moved  by  the  man’s  interest  in 
him,  and  by  a  realization  that  he  really  needed  Christ 
in  his  life,  the  young  man  accepted  Christ  immediately. 
At  once  a  tremendous  change  came  over  him ;  he  be¬ 
came  intensely  devoted  to  the  service  of  his  divine 
Master,  and  he  labored  for  him  with  increasing  con¬ 
secration  from  that  day  forward. 

SUCCESSFUL  IN  SELLING  AND  IN  SERVING 

Dwight  Moody  was  a  good  clerk  in  his  uncle’s  store. 
His  consecration  to  Christ  made  him  a  still  better  sales¬ 
man.  People  now  found  that  they  always  could  take 


AN  EVANGELIST  TO  ALL  THE  WORLD 


85 


his  word  for  the  quality  of  the  goods  he  sold,  so  they 
preferred  to  deal  with  him  rather  than  with  the  other 
clerks.  He  prospered  in  a  business  way,  first  as  a  clerk, 
then  as  a  traveling  salesman  for  his  uncle,  and  later  as 
a  salesman  for  a  shoe  house  in  Chicago,  a  city  to  which 
he  moved  in  the  year  1856. 

Chicago  is  where  the  young  man’s  hardest  and  most 
successful  religious  work  began.  When  Dwight  united 
with  the  Plymouth  Congregational  Church  there,  he 
reserved  a  full  pew  in  the  church,  determining  to  bring 
in  outsiders  to  fill  it.  He  went  to  boarding  houses,  to 
street  corners,  and  even  into  saloons,  inviting  young 
men  to  go  to  church  with  him  and  help  fill  that  empty 
pew.  His  earnestness  and  enthusiasm  were  so  suc¬ 
cessful  that  almost  at  once  the  pew  was  filled  from  end 
to  end.  Then  he  reserved  another  pew  and  another  ; 
before  long  he  was  filling  four  pews  every  Sunday 
morning  with  young  men  who  a  few  weeks  before  had 
been  utter  strangers  to  him. 

INTO  THE  STREETS  AND  BYWAYS 

This  work  kept  Moody  busy  Sunday  mornings,  but 
because  he  had  nothing  useful  to  do  in  the  afternoon, 
he  thought  that  he  would  teach  a  class  in  a  mission  Sun¬ 
day  school  near  his  boarding  house.  But  Sunday  schools 
seem  not  to  have  been  very  popular  in  that  neighbor¬ 
hood;  the  school  had  sixteen  teachers  ready,  but  only 
twelve  scholars !  Moody  was  calmly  told  that  he  could 
have  a  class  the  next  Sunday  on  one  condition — that  he 
bring  his  own  scholars. 


86 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


It  was  a  strange  invitation,  but  not  too  strange  for 
Moody.  The  next  Sunday  he  went  out  on  the  streets, 
and  when  time  came  for  Sunday  school  he  marched 
to  the  mission  school,  leading  eighteen  boys  whom  he 
had  collected.  These  he  later  turned  over  to  the  other 
teachers,  while  he  himself  gave  his  time  to  gathering 
more  boys.  Week  after  week  he  kept  at  his  outdoor 
service  for  Christ  and  the  Sunday  school,  until  finally 
the  building  was  crowded. 

Even  this  success  was  not  enough  for  the  ambitious 
Moody.  After  a  year  or  more  he  and  some  friends 
rented  a  hall  over  a  public  market,  and  this  they  soon 
filled  with  boys  and  girls  brought  in  from  the  streets 
and  the  neighboring  homes.  Once  he  led  into  the 
Sunday  school  the  members  of  a  real  boys  “gang,” 
whose  names  sound  very  unlike  those  of  the  boys  who 
are  in  most  of  our  Sunday  schools  to-day.  These  are 
their  names :  Red  Eye,  Smikes,  Madden  the  Butcher, 
Rag-Breeches  Cadet,  Jackey  Candles,  Old  Man, 
Giberick,  Billy  Blucannon,  Darby  the  Cobbler,  Butcher 
Lilray,  Greenhorn,  Indian,  and  Black  Stove  Pipe. 

This  Sunday  school  grew  very  rapidly,  until  it  had 
1,500  scholars  and  was  the  largest  Sunday  school  in 
the  country.  After  a  time  it  developed  into  a  church 
that  is  still  alive  and  active  to-dav,  and  that  is  known 
over  all  the  world  as  the  Moody  Church,  of  Chicago. 

A  BUSINESS  MAN  WHO  GAVE  UP  A  FORTUNE 

All  this  time  the  young  man  Moody  was  busy  during 
the  week  with  his  business,  in  which  he  was  doing  very 


87 


AN  EVANGELIST  TO  ALL  THE  WORLD 

♦ 
t 

well;  already  he  had  accumulated  $7,000.  He  had 
determined  to  gain  a  fortune  of  $100,000,  which  in 
these  days  would  be  equal  to  perhaps  a  million  dollars. 
But,  successful  though  he  was,  Moody  never  got  the 
fortune.  For  in  time  he  had  an  experience  that  made 
him  glad  to  give  up  his  business,  and  devote  all  his 
energies  to  religious  work.  This  is  how  the  experience 
came  about: 

One  Sunday  Moody  called  on  a  man  who  was  the 
teacher  of  a  Sunday-school  class  composed  of  gay  and 
frivolous  young  women.  The  teacher  was  so  ill  that 
that  very  day  he  realized  that  he  must  go  back  to  his 
home  in  the  east  to  die.  Yet  he  felt  desperately  sad  be¬ 
cause  not  one  of*  the  young  women  was  a  Christian,  and 
he  dreaded  leaving  them  while  they  still  were  away 
from  Christ. 

Touched  with  sympathy  for  the  man,  Moody  urged 
the  teacher  to  go  with  him  at  once,  and  call  on  the 
young  women  one  by  one.  They  wen-t,  with  the  result 
that  the  pleading  of  Mt>ody.  himself,  in  the  presence  of 
their  sick  teacher,  led  several  of  the  young  women  to 
accept  Christ,  and  in  ten  days  they  all  had  become 
Christians.  The  teacher  went  home  to  die,  but  to  die 
with  joy. 

Following  this  first  experience  of  leading  so  many 
persons  to  Christ,  Moody  devoted  himself  completely 
to  Christian  work.  For  several  years  he  gave  all  his 
time  to  Young  Men’s  Christian  Association  work,  to 
Sunday-school  work,  and  to  work  among  the  soldiers 
of  the  Civil  War  between  the  states. 


88 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


IN  THE  FOOTSTEPS  OF  FINNEY 

In  1867  came  an  eventful  journey  to  England. 
Moody  went  there  in  order  to  visit  two  well-known 
Christian  men  of  England.  While  in  that  land  he  heard 
some  one  use  words  that  became  a  wonderful  inspira¬ 
tion  to  him.  The  words  were  these :  “The  world  has 
yet  to  see  what  God  will  do  with  and  for  and  through 
and  in  and  by  the  man  who  is  fully  and  wholly  conse¬ 
crated  to  him.” 

Immediately  Moody  said  to  himself,  “I  intend  to  try 
my  utmost  to  be  that  man!"  That  he  did  try  exceed¬ 
ingly  well,  all  of  us  must  confess  who  remember  his 
life  thereafter. 

» 

Moody  at  once  began  to  hold  prayer  meetings  and 
evangelistic  meetings,  which  from  the  first  were  greatly 
blessed  by  God.  From  England  he  came  home,  and 
here  he  continued  his  Young  Men’s  Christian  Associa¬ 
tion  work  and  Sunday-school  labors.  Through  them 
all  God  was  preparing  him  for  the  tremendous  suc¬ 
cesses  of  his  later  years. 

Six  years  after  his  first  visit  to  England  he  went 
again,  this  time  to  hold  remarkable  revival  services  in 
all  of  England  and  Scotland.  In  Glasgow,  thirty  thou¬ 
sand  persons  heard  him  preach  at  one  outdoor  meeting; 
in  Edinburgh,  twenty  thousand  attended  one  service; 
at  Aberdeen,  he  spoke  to  the  same  number  of  persons  on 
one  day.  During  eight  days,  100,000  persons  heard 
him  in  Birmingham,  a  city  in  which  John  Wesley  one 
hundred  years  or  so  before  had  been  cruelly  mistreated 
by  a  mob. 


AN  EVANGELIST  TO  ALL  THE  WORLD 


89 


Similar  fame  and  success  greeted  the  American  evan¬ 
gelist  in  London,  where  seventeen  thousand  persons 
attended  his  first  meeting,  with  thousands  unable  to 
press  their  way  into  the  building.  In  this  British 
capital  Moody  held  two  hundred  and  eighty-five  meet¬ 
ings,  which  were  attended  by  two  and  a  half  million 
people.  In  London,  and  in  all  the  other  cities  where 
Moody  spoke  of  Christ  to  the  people,  hundreds  and 
thousands  of  persons  were  converted. 

Moody  came  back  to  the  United  States  as  the  most 
famous  evangelist  the  world  had  heard  of  since^Finney's 
time.  Everywhere  in  the  country  from  east  to  west, 
and  north  to  south,  for  twenty-five  years,  he  conducted 
evangelistic  campaigns,  speaking  to  millions,  leading 
tens  of  thousands  of  Christians  closer  to  Christ,  and 
persuading  countless  thousands  to  accept  salvation  in 
Christ  for  the  first  time. 

MEETINGS  FOR  ALL  THE  WORLD 

Perhaps  the  most  notable  of  all  Moody's  campaigns 
was  conducted  at  Chicago  in  1893,  in  connection  with 
the  great  World's  Fair  held  to  celebrate  the  four 
hundredth  anniversary  of  Colunbus’  discovery  of 
America.  All  denominations  united  with  the  famous 
evangelist  in  holding  meetings  in  eight  or  ten  or  a 
dozen  different  parts  of  the  city  every  Sunday,  and 
in  many  places  every  week  night. 

Attendants  on  the  fair  from  all  over  the  world 
flocked  to  these  gatherings  in  Chicago.  Once  Moody 
rented  a  circus  tent  that  had  seats  for  ten  thousand 


90  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

people,  though  the  circus  manager  let  Moody  know  that 
he  did  not  expect  to  see  three  thousand  attend.  In  fact, 
eighteen* thousand  men,  women,  and  children  came,  and 
the  tent  was  filled  with  a  seated  and  standing  multitude. 

During  that  summer  and  autumn,  Moody  held  meet¬ 
ings  for  all  sorts  of  people,  and  all  were  remarkably  well 
attended.  He  had  meetings,  for  men*  only,  for  women 
only,  for  children  only;  for  soldiers;  in  jails,  in  the 
open  air,  in  private  homes;  meetings  for  Germans, 
Poles,  Bohemians,  French,  Jews,  and  Arabs;  he  con¬ 
ducted  all-day  meetings  and  all-night  meetings.  Minis¬ 
ters  from  every  quarter  of  the  globe  were  there  to 
assist  him — men  from  Britain;  Russia,  from  Silesia, 
France,  Germany,  from  Australia  and  the  islands  of 
the  sea. 

On  several  Sundays  the  evangelist  directed  as  many 
as  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  different  meetings,  in 
each  of  which  the  people  were  told  of  the  love  of  God 
and  urged  to  come  to  Christ  for  salvation.  And  hosts 
of  them  came. 

THE  JOY  OF  COMPLETE  CONSECRATION 

For  years  before  his  death,  Moody  knew  that  he  had 
heart  trouble,  and  that  if  he  continued  at  his  hard  work 
for  Christ,  in  time  this  surely  would  kill  him.  Yet  he 
kept  on.  And  he  ended  his  life  as  he  had  expected  to 
end  it.  In  1899  he  was  conducting  meetings  in  the 
crowded  Convention  Hall  at  Kansas  City,  when  sud¬ 
denly  his  heart  gave  way,  the  meetings  were  handed 
over  to  an  assistant,  and  Moody  himself  went  back  to 


AN  EVANGELIST  TO  ALL  THE  WORLD 


91 


his  eastern  home  to  die — just  as  the  Sunday-school 
teacher  had  gone  years  before.  There,  at  his  birth¬ 
place,  Northheld,  Massachusetts,  during  Christmas 
week  of  1899,  Dwight  L.  Moody  gave  up  his  life.  Like 
that  old-time  Sunday-school  teacher,  he  died  happy  in 
the  knowledge  that  through  him  God  had  led  to  himself 
the  people  whom  God  had  committed  to  his  charge — 
not  merely  a  few  young  women,  indeed,  but  thousands 
of  young  women,  with  thousands  of  children,  and  many 
thousands  of  grown  men  and  women. 

Why  did  God  give  such  mighty  success  to  the  life 
of  D.  L.  Moody?  Maybe  there  are  many  reasons,  but 
surely  this  is  one  of  them  :  This  man  of  God  did  his  ut¬ 
most  to  show  the  world  what  God  can  do  through  a 
person  who  is  fully  and  wholly  consecrated  to  him. 

Suggestion:  Lesson  X  led  up  to  thoughts  of  acceptance  of 
Christ;  this  lesson  leads  naturally  to  serious  thoughts  of 
complete  consecration.  It  is  not  too  early  for  Intermediate- 
age  boys  and  girls  to  feel  at  least  the  first  stirrings  of  deep 
life  purpose. 

This  account  of  Moody’s  life  is  necessarily  incomplete;  his 
son’s  biography  includes  helpful  incidents  of  the  evangelist’s 
Northfield  work,  for  example. 

Books  Suggested 

Moody,  W.  R.,  “The  Life  of  Dwight  L.  Moody.” 

Ogilvie,  “The  Life  and  Sermons  of  D.  L.  Moody.” 

Williams,  Biography  of  D.  L.  Moody. 


92 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OE  THE  CHURCH 


LESSON  XIII 

THE  FOUNDER  OF  OUR  SUNDAY  SCHOOLS 

Read:  Deut.  6:  4-9. 

Memory  Verse:  “Blessed  are  they  that  hear  the  word  of 
God,  and  keep  it.” — Luke  11:28. 

WHEN  SUNDAY  SCHOOLS  WERE  UNKNOWN 

Nowadays  there  are  so  many  Sunday  schools  that  it 
is  hard  for  us  to  realize  that  once  there  were  none. 
The  first  modern  Sunday  school  was  opened  about  the 
time  of  our  Revolutionary ‘War.  It  is  very  curious 
that  there  were  not  Sunday  schools  through  all  the 
history  of  the  Christian  Church,  for  certainly  the 
apostles  used  to  teach  the  Bible  much  as  it  is  taught 
in  Sunday  schools  now,  and  we  know  that  there  were 
Christian  Sunday  schools  in  Egypt  and  Armenia  about 
fifteen  hundred  years  ago. 

But  when  the  Dark  Ages  came,  and  when  the  Church 
lost  much  of  its  power  and  purity,  it  lost  its  Sunday 
schools,  also.  Of  course,  when  the  Church  regained  its 
strength,  it  was  sure  to  find  the  need  of  Sunday  schools, 
yet  centuries  passed,  even  after  the  days  of  Luther  and 
Calvin,  before  it  really  saw  the  necessity  clearly,  and 
’  proceeded  to  meet  it.  Meanwhile,  the  people  of  Europe 
and  America  were  in  a  sad  state  because  they  had  no 
such  general  knowledge  of  the  Bible  as  the  Sunday 
school  provides. 

When  John  Wesley  was  alive,  he  found  the  people  of 
England  in  a  wretched  condition,  “A  total  ignorance 


THE  FOUNDER  OF  OUR  SUNDAY  SCHOOLS  93 


of  God  is  almost  universal  among  us,”  he  said.  People 
“high  and  low — cobblers,  tinkers,  hackney  coachmen, 
men  and  maid  servants,  soldiers,  sailors,  tradesmen  of 
all  ranks,  lawyers,  physicians,  gentlemen,  lords — are 
as  ignorant  of  the  Creator  of  the  world  as  Mohamme¬ 
dans  or  pagans.” 

In  those  days  few  boys  and  girls  except  the  children 
of  rich  people  could  read  and  write ;  a  workman’s  fifteen- 
year-old  son  or  daughter  who  could  read  was  almost 
as  rare  then  as  a  fifteen-year-old  boy  or  girl  who  cannot 
read  is  now. 

“The  children  are  terrible  bad,”  people  used  to  say 
one  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  In  the  towns  and 
cities  of  England,  we  are  told,  the  boys,  and  even 
the  girls,  fought  and  lied  and  stole,  and  were  dirty  and 
unkempt.  People's  property  was  unsafe  because  of  the 
thieving  of  organized  gangs  of  wild  and  ignorant  boys, 
who  made  the  streets  at  night  hideous  with  their  shouts 
and  curses.  Half-starved,  living  in  huts  and  hovels,  and 
neglected,  these  poor  children  were  scorned  by  people 
of  wealth  and  culture,  and  most  well-clothed  persons 
would  not  let  the  town’s  children  come  within  reach 
of  them. 

It  was  a  sad  time  for  children.  What  they  needed 
was  to  be  cared  for,  and  not  scorned,  to  be  educated, 
and  especially  to  be  taught  how  to  live  a  clean,  orderly, 
and  happy  life.  The  day  came,  indeed,  when  they  re¬ 
ceived  just  this  sort  of  help,  and  the  man  who  was  most 
responsible  for  getting  help  for  them  is  known  to  us 
as  Robert  Raikes,  the  founder  of  our  Sunday  schools. 


94 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


A  MONUMENT,  AND  THE  MAN  IT  HONORS 

If  you  were  to  walk  on  the  embankment  along  the 
River  Thames,  in  London,  England,  you  would  see  at 
a  certain  spot  a  monument  that  bears  the  name  of 
Robert  Raikes.  This  was  erected  in  memory  and  in 
honor  of  the  man  who  gave  us  our  Sunday  schools, 
a  man  who  loved  boys  and  girls,  and  who,  because  he 
loved  them,  gave  them  the  mighty  institution  that  we 
know  as  the  Sunday  school. 

This  friend  of  the  children  of  the  eighteenth  century 
was  a  printer  and  newspaper  man  who  lived  in  the  city 
of  Gloucester,  England.  About  the  time  of  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  our  French  and  Indian  War,  he  became  the 
publisher  of  the  city’s  paper,  The  Gloucester  Journal. 
But  Raikes  was  not  only  a  newspaper  man;  he  was 
also  a  friend  of  men  and  women  who  were  in  jail.  He 
used  to  visit  these  poor  people,  and  in  his  paper  he 
printed  appeals  to  other  people  to  help  them. 

Raikes  used  to  do  a  good  deal  of  thinking  about  the 
persons  who  had  been  sent  to  prison  because  they  had 
broken  the  law.  No  doubt  he  soon  began  to  think  in 
this  way  :  Why  did  these  people  break  the  law  ?  Some 
of  them  broke  it,  surely,  because  they  were  bad,  but 
most  of  them  because  they  were  just  ignorant;  they 
knew  no  better.  When  they  are  dead,  who  will  fill  the 
jails  then?  The  ignorant  boys  and  girls  of  Gloucester, 
of  course,  who  by  that  time  will  have  become  ignorant 
men  and  women.  But  is  there  not  some  way  to  teach 
the  boys  and  girls  of  the  city  a  better  way  of  living? 
Can  we  not  have  schools  for  them,  in  which  they  can 


THE  FOUNDER  OF  OUR  SUNDAY  SCHOOLS  95 


learn  to  read  and  write,  and  in  which  they  can  learn 
from  the  Bible  how  to  live  a  useful  and  happy  life? 

In  some  such  way  as  this,  Robert  Raikes  came  to  a 
decision  to  open  a  school  on  Sundays,  in  which  children 
who  had  to  work  on  week  days  could  study.  So  he 
persuaded  a  Mrs.  Meredith  to  become  superintendent 
of  a  school  for  street  children,  which  he  opened  in  Soot 
Alley,  one  of  the  worst  districts  of  the  city.  This 
school  did  not  live  very  long,  but  after  a  time  he  opened 
a  school  that  survived. 

A  PIONEER  SCHOOL,  AND  HOW  IT  TAUGHT 

The  first  of  all  modern  Sunday  schools  that  became 
permanent  was  opened  by  Raikes  near  his  own  home  in 
the  year  1 780.  This  was  in  a  place  called  the  Grey  Friars, 
opposite  the  church  of  St.  Mary  le  Crypt.  Very  dif¬ 
ferent  from  our  Sunday  schools  was  this  Grey  Friars 
school.  In  the  first  place,  all  its  teachers  were  paid 
for  their  work,  just  as  day-school  teachers  are  paid 
to-day.  Then,  these  teachers  taught  the  boys  and  girls 
not  only  about  the  Bible  and  the  Church  catechism,  but 
also  how  to  read.  Suppose  we  see  just  how  this  first 
school  spent  its  hours. 

In  the  first  Sunday  school  the  work  began  at  ten 
o'clock  Sunday  morning,  and  continued  until  twelve. 
Then  the  children  went  home  to  dinner,  returning  at 
one.  In  the  afternoon  they  studied  a  lesson  after  which 
they  were  led  to  a  church  service.  Raikes  himself  often 
marched  through  Gloucester  streets  with  his  children, 
taking  them  to  the  church,  and  later  from  the  church 


96 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


back  to  the  school.  While  they  studied  the  catechism, 
from  about  four  until  half-past  five,  Raikes  used  some¬ 
times  to  teach  them  himself,  and  even  to  punish  the 
worst  boys.  At  five-thirty  he  or  the  superintendent  dis¬ 
missed  the  children,  warning  them  to  go  straight  home, 
to  go  quietly,  and  by  no  means  to  stop  on  the  way  home 
to  play. 

It  is  really  remarkable  how  quickly  the  boys  and  girls 
responded  to  the  affection  and  the  care  that  Robert 
Raikes  and  his  helpers  gave  them.  The  change  in  their 

lives  was  so  marked,  and  their  interest  in  the  school  so 

* 

great,  that  Raikes  speedily  realized  that  he  had  really 
found  exactly  what  the  children  needed,  and  what  the 
Church  needed  :  it  was  the  Sunday  school.  According¬ 
ly,  the  founder  of  the  Sunday  school  wrote  an  article 
for  his  paper  about  the  success  of  the  Gloucester  school, 
in  order  that  people  in  other  parts  of  England  might 
learn  of  it. 

A  VICTORY  FOR  THE  CHILDREN 

Almost  at  once,  practically  all  the  Christian  people 
of  England  became  enthusiastic  for  this  fine  new  move¬ 
ment.  John  Wesley  said  that  the  Sunday  school  was 
one  of  the  best  institutions  seen  in  Europe  for  centuries, 
and  the  rapid  growth  of  the  Methodist  societies  and 
churches  was  largely  due  to  his  organization  of  Sunday 
schools  wherever  he  could. 

Perhaps  the  world  never  has  seen  so  remarkable  a 
growth  as  that  of  the  Sunday  school  during  the  next 
few  years.  Within  four  years  after  Raikes  told  in  his 
paper  of  the  Gloucester  Sunday  school,  nearly  two 


THE  FOUNDER  OF  OUR  SUNDAY  SCHOOLS  97 


hundred  and  fifty  thousand  English  children  were  at¬ 
tending  Sunday  school.  One  of  Wesley’s  schools 
alone  had  an  average  attendance  of  eighteen  hundred. 

Everyone  seemed  to  want  to  help.  The  king  and 
queen  publicly  approved  the  Sunday  schools.  Lords 
and  ladies,  rich  men  and  wealthy  women,  asked  per¬ 
mission  to  teach  in  the  schools  without  payment,  for 
by  this  time  most  of  the  teaching  was  done  free  of 
charge.  Nearly  every  week  a  new  Sunday  school 
sprang  up  somewhere,  and  soon  there  were  dozens  a 
week. 

By  this  time  the  movement  had  reached  America. 
Bishop  Asbury  in  1786  established  a  Sunday  school  in 
Virginia;  five  years  later  a  school  was  opened  in 
Boston,  and  in  1793  a  famous  Negro  woman,  Katy 
Ferguson,  founded  a  Sunday  school  in  New  York  City. 
Other  schools  sprang  up  here  and  there,  though  more 
slowly  than  in  crowded  England.  Just  as  in  England, 
the  new  Sunday-school  movement  produced  a  great 
change  in  America.  It  helped  boys  and  girls  to  live 
better  lives,  raised  the  country’s  standard  of  morals,  in¬ 
creased  the  people’s  respect  for  children,  and  enabled 
the  children  themselves  to  realize  that  the  Church  is 
not  only  for  grown  people ;  it  is  for  boys  and  girls  quite 
as  much  as  for  men  and  women. 

Another  notable  fruit  of  Robert  Raikes’s  Sunday 
schools  is  the  growth  of  day  schools  throughout  the 
world.  After  a  time  the  Sunday  school  could  stop 
teaching  reading  and  give  all  its  attention  to  teaching 
the  Bible,  for  day  schools  grew  up  everywhere.  In 


98 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


fact,  Robert  Raikes  is  not  only  the  founder  of  our  Sun¬ 
day  schools,  but  also  the  indirect  founder  of  our  kin¬ 
dergartens,  grade  schools,  high  schools,  academies,  and 
colleges. 

Our  Sunday  schools  to-day  are  a  vast  improvement 
over  the  first  efforts  of  Raikes;  they  teach  not  only 
boys  and  girls,  but  also  men  and  women  of  all  ages, 
and  they  teach  them  all  to  know  the  Bible  through  and 
through,  and  to  live  helpfully  and  happily  as  the  Christ 
of  the  Bible  would  have  them  live.  Yet  all  the  countless 
thousands  of  Sunday ‘schools  of  our  own  time  are  an 
outgrowth  of  the  work  in  Gloucester,  England,  of 
Robert  Raikes,  the  newspaper  man  who  loved  children, 
and  who  did  his  best  to  help  them. 

Suggestion:  Here  and  elsewhere  show  how  one  new  de¬ 
velopment  of  the  Church’s  history  depends  on  another;  Wesle}r, 
Moody,  and  Chalmers  (Lesson  XIV),  needed  Robert  Raikes’s 
work  for  their  success.  We  never  know  what  great  things 
God  will  do  some  day  as  a  result  of  our  own  faithfulness  to 
him.. 


Books  Suggested 

Trumbull,  “The  Sunday  School:  Its  Origin,  Mission, 
Methods,  and  Auxiliaries.” 

Lloyd  and  Gregory,  Biographies  of  Raikes. 


THE  FRIEND  OF  SCOTLAND’S  CHILDREN  99 


LESSON  XIV 

THE  FRIEND  OF  SCOTLAND’S  CHILDREN 

Read:  II  Kings  4:  1-7. 

Memory  Verse:  “Jehovah  is  good  to  all; 

And  his  tender  mercies  are  over  all  his 
works.’’ — Ps.  145:9. 


LED  TO  CHRIST  THROUGH  AN  ENCYCLOPEDIA 

If  you  ever  have  read  many  articles  in  an  encyclo¬ 
pedia,  you  may  feel  that  this  sort  of  reference  book  is 
not  always  extremely  interesting.  It  has  so  many  im¬ 
portant  facts  to  tell  in  a  brief  space  that  it  has  to  leave 
out  many  of  the  more  thrilling  features  of  life  that  we 
like  to  read.  Yet  even  in  connection  with  such  a 
weighty  volume  as  an  encyclopedia,  we  often  run 
across  some  decidedly  interesting  facts.  Here,  for 
example  is  one : 

About  one  hundred  years  ago  a  certain  Scotchman, 
who  was  not  very  much  of  a  Christian  at  that  time, 
was  told  to  write  an  article  for  an  encyclopedia  that 
was  about  to  be  published.  Curiously  enough,  the  sub¬ 
ject  assigned  to  him  was  “Christianity.”  When  this 
man  set  to  work  on  his  article,  he  became  so  deeply  in¬ 
terested  in  his  subject  that  gradually  his  admiration 
for  Christ  and  for  Christianity  greatly  increased.  The 
result  was  that  by  the  time  his  encyclopedia  article  was 
complete,  his  conversion  to  Christ  was  complete,  also, 
and  he  thus  became  fitted  to  be  one  of  the  outstanding 
leaders  of  the  Christian  Church  in  his  time. 


100  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


This  noted  Scotchman  was  Dr.  Thomas  Chalmers, 
whom  we  shall  remember  as  “The  Friend  of  Scotland’s 
Children.”  Dr.  Chalmers  was  an  eloquent  preacher, 
like  Whitefield  and  Phillips  Brooks,  but  he  was  more 
than  this :  he  was  also  a  remarkably  successful  pastor. 
And  as  a  pastor,  he  did  some  magnificent  things  for  the 
boys  and  girls  of  Scotland.  Many  of  these  deeds  he 
was  able  to  perform  because  Robert  Raikes,  whose 
Sunday-school  movement  formed  a  central  feature  of 
Dr.  Chalmers  notable  work,  had  lived  before  him. 

A  MERRY  BOY  WHO  WENT  TO  COLLEGE 

Tom  Chalmers,  a  member  of  a  family  of  fourteen 
children,  was  born  in  1780  (just  about  when  Raikes 
was  opening  his  first  Sunday  school  at  East  An- 
struther,  in  Scotland).  His  father  was  a  rich  merchant, 
shipowner,  town  councilor,  and  elder  in  the  Presby¬ 
terian  Church.  When  Tom  went  to  school  he  was 
known  as  one  of  the  strongest,  merriest,  most  gener¬ 
ous-hearted,  and  also  most  idle  boys  in  the  whole  school. 

While  he  was  in  school,  Tom  decided  on  what  he 
would  be  when  he  became  a  man.  As  he  looked  around 
him,  he  observed  that  in  his  town  the  man  whom  every¬ 
one  most  looked  up  to  was  not  Tom’s  own  rich  father, 
nor  a  city  judge  or  magistrate,  nor  a  physician,  but  the 
minister  of  the  church.  So  Tom  decided  that  when  he 
was  a  man  he  would  be  a  minister. 

Tom  Chalmers  was  only  eleven  years  old  when  he 
went  off  to  college  with  his  thirteen-year-old  brother, 
William.  In  this  college,  which  was  St.  Andrews 


THE  FRIEND  OF  SCOTLAND’S  CHILDREN  101 


University,  he  evidently  took  high-school  or  even 
grammar-school  studies  for  a  while.  At  any  rate,  he 
led  a  rather  careless  life  for  two  years  or  so.  Much  of 
his  time  he  gave  to  golf  and  football.  But  when  he 
became  thirteen,  he  settled  down  to  hard  work,  and 
kept  at  it  the  remainder  of  his  life. 

From  the  year  Chalmers  left  college  until  he  was 
twenty-two  years  old,  he  spent  his  time  in  tutoring  the 
children  of  a  wealthy  man  who  lived  not  far  from  his 
home,  in  studying  theology,  and  in  teaching  mathe¬ 
matics  to  a  few  pupils.  He  was  a  very  bright  young 
man,  and  he  gave  so  much  promise  that  he  was  licensed 
to  preach  when  he  was  only  nineteen,  though  the  cus¬ 
tom  was  to  license  only  men  of  twenty-one  or  over. 

A  fine  life  of  usefulness  began  for  Chalmers  when  he 
was  twenty-two.  At  that  age  he  became  both  pastor  of 
the  church  at  Kilmany,  and  also  teacher  of  mathematics 
in  his  own  university,  nine  miles  away.  Persons  who  do 
not  like  mathematics  may  be  surprised  to  learn  that,  at 
St.  Andrew,  Chalmers  made  the  subject  so  interesting, 
and  interesting  in  so  novel  a  way,  that  his  classrooms 
were  thronged ;  he  had  all  the  private  pupils  he  could 
care  for,  and  the  staid  old  professors  of  the  university 
were  astounded  and  even  dismayed  at  his  success. 

Early  in  his  pastoral  work,  Chalmers  became  greatly 
devoted  to  Christ  and  his  work.  Two  factors  had 
helped  to  produce  this  result :  First,  he  had  read  a  book 
by  a  famous  American  minister  of  whom  we  know, 
Jonathan  Edwards,  a  book  that  gave  him  intense  joy 
in  God  as  his  all-powerful  Lord.  Second,  he  wrote  the 


102  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


encyclopedia  article  on  Christianity  that  led  him  close 
to  Christ.  In  consequence,  during  his  ten  years  as 
minister  at  Kilmany,  he  was  a  helpful  pastor  and  elo¬ 
quent  preacher. 

BREAKING  INTO  CHURCH  TO  HEAR  THE  GOSPEL 

Yet  it  was  not  until  Chalmers  became  pastor  of  the 
Tron  Church  in  the  city  of  Glasgow  that  the  people  of 
Scotland  generally  learned  of  his  power  as  a  preacher. 
Almost  from  his  first  Sunday  in  the  Glasgow  church, 
his  preaching  services  were  greeted  by  multitudes  of 
eager  hearers.  All  the  seats  were  taken,  and  even  the 
standing  room  was  exhausted.  Sometimes  the  huge 
crowds  outside  burst  open  the  locked  doors  when  he 
was  preaching,  and  surged  into  the  packed  church. 

Two  years  later,  when  Chalmers  preached  a  few 
sermons  in  London,  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  was 
boundless.  Four  hours  before  his  first  service  was  to 
begin,  the  church  was  filled  to  overflowing,  and  the 
congregation  sat  as  if  bound  by  a  spell,  while  for  an 
hour  and  a  half  the  eloquent  Glasgow  minister  preached, 
to  them  the  Word  of  God.  At  another  London  service 
a  number  of  exalted  lords  and  ladies  had  to  climb  into 
the  church  over  a  plank  leading  into  a  window,  and 
even  Chalmers  himself  had  great  trouble  to  get  in,  so 
immense  was  the  throng  in  and  outside  the  building. 

About  this  time  Chalmers  published  a  volume  of  his 
sermons.  It  happened  that  a  popular  novel  appeared 
almost  the  same  week.  To  the  astonishment  of  all 
England  and  Scotland,  as  many  copies  of  Chalmers' 


THE  FRIEND  OF  SCOTLAND’S  CHILDREN  103 


sermons  were  sold  as  were  sold  of  the  novel.  Twenty 

a/ 

thousand  volumes  were  paid  for  the  first  year. 

AT  WORK  FOR  BOYS  AND  GIRLS 

All  this  time,  however,  Chalmers  was  thinking  less 
of  the  eagerness  of  the  rich  and  comfortable  people  to 
hear  him  preach  than  of  the  poorer  people  who  never 
came  to  hear  him  preach — and  who  never  went  to  any 
church.  He  thought  of  the  weavers  and  factory 
workers  and  other  working  people,  and  of  their  families, 
and  especially  of  their  children. 

Chalmers  knew  that  the  number  of  boys  and  girls  in 
his  city  who  could  neither  read  nor  write,  and  who 
never  had  any  religious  instruction  whatever,  was  un¬ 
counted.  Tirelessly  he  called  at  the  homes  of  these 
children,  and  because  he  could  not  get  their  parents  to 
come  to  his  church — which  they  considered  only  a  rich 
people’s  church — he  held  Christian  meetings  for  them 
in  cottages  and  tenements.  Week  after  week  and  year 
after  year,  these  meetings  went  on,  and  hundreds  of 
boys  and  girls,  and  their  fathers  and  mothers,  were 
shown  God’s  love  for  them. 

Even  this  success  nevertheless,  was  not  enough  for 
the  friend  of  Scotland’s  children.  Chalmers  had  heard 
of  the  helpful  Sunday  schools  of  Robert  Raikes,  and  he 
determined  to  open  one  of  these  for  his  own  boys  and 
girls.  He  sent  an  officer  of  his  church  into  one  neigh¬ 
borhood,  and  with  his  help  visited  all  the  families  there 
and  gathered  their  children  into  a  Sunday  school. 

During  the  week  his  church  officer  made  “pastoral 


104  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


calls’*  on  the  families  of  these  girls  and  boys,  doing  all 
he  could  to  help  them  in  their  minds  and  souls  and 
bodies.  Soon  another  Sunday  school  of  this  kind  was 
opened  by  Chalmers,  and  then  another.  Then  schools 
grew  up  on  every  hand,  until  the  minister  had  under 
his  direction  almost  fifty  Sunday  schools  in  his  large 
parish. 

Still  Chalmers  was  not  satisfied.  He  appealed  to  the 
leading  men  of  the  city,  and  they  helped  him  to  build 
a  new  church  in  the  largest  and  poorest  part  of  the  town. 
This  new  church,  St.  John’s,  quickly  became  the  center 
of  a  surprisingly  effective  Christian  work.  The  minister 
divided  his  parish  into  twenty-five  districts,  each  with 
five  hundred  to  one  thousand  people,  and  in  each  dis¬ 
trict  he  placed  an  elder  and  a  deacon,  and  in  each  he 
organized  a  Sunday  school.  The  elder  was  to  help  the 
people’s  spiritual  lives,  and  the  deacon  to  relieve  their 
bodily  needs.  The  hungry  were  fed,  the  poorly  clad 
were  comfortably  clothed,  the  ignorant  taught,  and  all 
of  them  were  instructed  in  the  truths  of  the  Bible,  and 
of  Christ  and  the  Christian  life. 

Because  the  people  did  not  like  to  attend  a  church  filled 
with  rich  people,  Dr.  Chalmers  held  a  special  service 
every  Sunday  just  for  them.  He  told  the  better  dressed 
people  that  they  would  be  welcome  Sunday  morning  and 
afternoon,  but  that  they  must  stay  away  at  night;  at 
night  the  church  was  mostly  for  his  poorer  people, 
he  said,  just  as  his  Sunday  schools  were  mostly  for  his 
poorer  people’s  children. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  when  Dr.  Chalmers  later  felt 


THE  FRIEND  OF  SCOTLAND’S  CHILDREN  105 

called  to  leave  Glasgow  to  become  a  professor  in  his 
university,  at  a  smaller  salary  than  he  was  getting  in 
St.  John’s  Church,  his  poorer  people,  and  his  richer 
people,  too,  were  overwhelmed  with  grief.  At  his 
farewell  service  the  crowd  that  streamed  into  the 
church,  and  that  filled  the  streets  and  pressed  against 
the  doors,  was  so  huge  that  soldiers  had  to  he  called  to 
guard  the  property  from  destruction  by  the  affectionate 
throng.  The  entire  city  seemed  to  have  come  out  to 
say  good-by  to  the  minister  who  was  loved  by  rich  and 
poor,  grown  people  and  countless  children  alike. 

STILL  THE  FRIEND  OF  THE  CHILDREN 

But  Chalmers  did  not  forget  the  children  of  Scot¬ 
land.  He  was  professor  at  St.  Andrews  and  later  at  the 
University  of  Edinburgh,  and  always  great  men  were 
appealing  to  him  for  help  in  solving  the  great  problems 
of  the  country,  and  always  immense  crowds  pressed 
toward  him  whenever  he  gave  an  address.  Yet 
through  it  all  he  thought  of  Scotland’s  poor  and  of 
Scotland’s  children. 

After  a  time  Chalmers  found  an  opportunity  again 
to  help  his  people.  He  became  chairman  of  the  Presby¬ 
terian  Church’s  new  Committee  on  Church  Extension, 
and  as  chairman  he  raised  large  sums  of  money — a 
total  of  about  a  million  and  a  half  dollars — and  in 
seven  years  he  built  new  churches  in  Scotland  to  the  re¬ 
markable  number  of  220.  And  of  course  each  of  these 
was  prepared  to  house  a  Sunday  school  for  Scotland’s 
children. 


106  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Some  time  after  this,  Dr.  Chalmers  became  the  head 
of  a  new  Presbyterian  denomination,  the  Free  Church 
of  Scotland.  One  of  his  first  deeds  as  head  of  this 
church  was  to  do  in  Edinburgh  what  he  had  done  in 
Glasgow.  He  entered  a  district  of  poor  people  and  of 
neglected  children,  established  a  Sunday  school  and 
church,  and  in  four  years  he  saw  the  entire  district 
transformed.  From  ignorance  it  changed  to  knowl¬ 
edge,  from  poverty  to  comfort,  and  from  godlessness 
to  godliness.  What  God  had  done  in  Glasgow,  through 
Thomas  Chalmers,  he  did  in  Edinburgh,  too;  for  al¬ 
ways  God  glorifies  the  work  of  anyone  who  loves  the 
Lord  and  loves  his  people,  also. 

Suggestion:  Let  the  children  try  their  hand  at  gathering 
from  encyclopedias  information  on  the  life  of  William  Booth 
(Lesson  XV).  Draw  out  responses  to  such  suggestions  as 
these:  name  three  noted  preachers  of  whom  we  have  studied; 
two  noted  revivalists;  two  noted  travelers  in  Christian  work; 
two  noted  friends  of  children. 

Book  Suggested 
Oliphant,  “Thomas  Chalmers.” 


A  GENERAL  OF  THE  CROSS 


107 


LESSON  XV 

A  GENERAL  OF  THE  CROSS 

Read:  Mark  6:  30-44. 

Memory  Verse:  “The  poor  have  good  tidings  preached  to 
them.” — Matt.  11:5. 

A  BOY  WHO  GAVE  BACK  A  GIFT 

Here  are  two  stories  of  a  boy  of  fifteen  or  sixteen 
years  of  age  who  became  a  man  that  all  the  world  has 
delighted  to  honor.  The  incidents  happened  about 
eighty  years  ago  in  England. 

William  had  recently  become  a  Christian,  but  he  was 
a  very  unhappy  Christian.  In  the  corner  of  a  room  be¬ 
neath  a  Methodist  church  he  sat  one  night  at  eleven 
o’clock,  trying  to  make  up  his  mind  to  do  the  one  thing 
that  he  felt  was  necessary  if  he  would  be  true  to  Christ. 

He  had  been  unfair,  he  knew.  He  had  taken  ad¬ 
vantage  of  some  of  his  boy  friends.  He  had  persuaded 
them  to  let  him  transact  a  small  business  affair  for 
them,  and  he  had  done  this  business  so  well  that  they 
were  all  pleased,  and  out  of  gratitude  had  presented 
him  with  a  silver  pencil  case.  Yet  in  shame  William 
acknowledged  to  himself  that  he  had  cheated  his 
friends ;  he  had  made  a  big  profit  for  himself  out  of  the 
affair. 

That  pencil  case  must  be  given  back,  the  boy  knew, 
and  he  must  own  his  treachery.  After  a  long  and 
bitter  fight,  he  surrendered.  He  rushed  out  of  the 
church,  found  the  leader  of  the  other  boys,  confessed 


108  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


his  meanness,  and  handed  back  the  present  that  he  had 
not  deserved. 

Then  William  went  home,  to  a  calm  sleep,  and  to 
a  happy  life  as  a  servant  of  Christ.  From  that  time  he 
made  it  the  business  of  his  life  to  be  active  in  the 
service  of  both  God  and  man. 

The  second  incident  refers  to  events  that  took  place 
a  few  months  later.  William  fell  seriously  ill,  and  he 
was  still  close  to  death  when  he  received  a  visit  from 
a  boy  friend.  This  boy,  also  a  Christian,  appealed 
to  William  to  get  well  quickly,  so  that  the  two 
could  hold  Christian  meetings  together  in  the  slums 
of  the  city. 

As  soon  as  he  was  able  to  be  out,  William  joined  his 
friend  at  a  meeting  at  night  in  the  slums,  and  he  con¬ 
tinued  to  help  him  night  after  night.  The  boys  used 
to  take  a  chair  into  the  street,  and  one  of  them,  stepping 
up  on  it,  would  announce  a  hymn,  which  the  two  sang, 
with  the  help  occasionally  of  three  or  four  other  persons 
attracted  to  the  scene.  Then  William  talked  to  the  peo¬ 
ple  who  had  gathered  around,  and  invited  them  to  go 
with  the  boys  to  a  meeting  they  were  to  hold  im¬ 
mediately  in  some  near-by  home. 

A  HARD  BUT  HAPPY  LIFE 

It  was  a  laborious  and  tireless  life  that  the  two  boys 
lived  in  those  days.  They  worked  for  a  living  all  day 
until  seven  o'clock,  then  visited  one  or  two  sick  persons 
among  the  poor.  By  eight  o’clock  or  so,  they  opened 
the  street  meeting,  which  was  followed  by  the  cottage 


A  GENERAL  OF  THE  CROSS 


109 


meeting.  This  often  resulted  in  the  conversion  of 
some  hearers.  After  the  cottage  meeting  the  boys 
called  on  one  or  two  more  sick  people  before  they  went 
to  bed.  But  by  seven  o'clock  next  morning  they  were 
again  at  work. 

Even  William's  lunch  hour  was  a  busy  time.  He  was 
allowed  only  forty  minutes  but  he  used  the  time  well. 
From  work  he  rushed  to  lunch,  and  from  lunch  back 
to  work,  all  the  time  reading  either  the  Bible  or  a  book 
on  revivals,  written  by  the  famous  American  revivalist, 
Charles  G.  Finney. 

It  is  very  clear  that  this  boy,  William  Booth,  was 
doing  his  level  best  to  live  up  to  his  determination  of 
months  before — to  be  active  in  work  for  both  God  and 
man.  And  always  he  worked  for  people  who  were 
poor — poorly  clothed,  poorly  fed,  poorly  educated,  and 
poorly  cared  for  in  every  way. 

a  “hallelujah  band” 

A  year  after  he  began  his  meetings  for  the  poor, 
William  Booth  was  licensed  as  a  Methodist  lay 
preacher.  He  tried  to  model  his  preaching  after  three 
men  in  particular;  these  were  Wesley,  Whitefield,  and 
Finney.  For  years  he  held  meetings  in  the  country, 
in  London,  and  in  other  cities.  Once  he  was  in  a  town 
in  Wales,  working  for  poor  men  who  had  been  sent  to 
jail  for  their  crimes,  and  who  there  or  later  had  been 
converted  by  Booth’s  help.  Some  of  these  men  Booth 
organized  into  a  band  of  gospel  witnesses  which  became 
known  as  a  “hallelujah  band.”  Night  after  night  these 


110  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


“hallelujah”  men  used  to  rise  in  Booth’s  meetings  and 
tell  of  the  love  that  Christ  had  shown  to  them. 

Much  of  Booth's  work  had  unusual  features  like  this 
“hallelujah  band.”  For  one  thing,  his  meetings  were 
held  in  unusual  places.  He  used  a  tent  for  a  while. 
Then  he  utilized  a  dance  hall,  a  frail  shed  that  had  been 
a  storehouse  for  old  rags,  some  old  theaters,  even  a  few 
decayed  and  discarded  church  buildings,  and,  after  a 
while,  a  saloon  that  had  been  burned  almost  to  the  ground. 

But  the  poor  people  for  whom  Booth  labored  did  not 
seem  to  care  how  old  and  dilapidated  his  meeting  places 
were.  They  attended  in  large  numbers,  and,  especially 
when  he  spoke  out  of  doors,  hundreds  heard  him  gladly. 

AT  WORK  FOR  LONDON’S  POOR 

By  this  time  Booth  had  left  the  Methodist  Church 
and  was  an  independent  preacher.  Like  Dr.  Chalmers, 
of  Scotland,  he  found  that  the  poor  of  his  city  were 
unwilling  to  attend  the  stately  and  comfortable  churches 
of  well-to-do  congregations,  but  were  ready  enough  to 
respond  to  Christian  meetings  held  in  theaters  and 
other  buildings  not  known  as  churches.  Greater  suc¬ 
cess  than  ever  greeted  Booth  when  he  began  holding 
meetings  in  a  hall  that  he  rented  in  Whitechapel  Road, 
the  People’s  Market  Hall. 

That  was  a  curious  part  of  the  city.  A  popular  center 
in  it  was  a  broad  strip  of  unpaved  ground  known  as 
the  Mile-End  Waste,  a  sort  of  fairground.  On  Satur¬ 
day  nights  and  Sundays,  the  Mile-End  Waste  was  the 
scene  of  much  cheap  fun  and  noisy  amusement.  Old- 


A  GENERAL  OF  THE  CROSS 


111 


fashioned  merry-go-rounds,  Punch  and  Judy  shows, 
stalls  for  selling  bad  songs  and  books,  speakers’  plat¬ 
forms  from  which  men  attacked  the  government  of  both 
God  and  man — these  were  features  of  the  holiday  life 
on  the  Mile-End  Waste. 

All  around,  also,  there  were  saloons  of  a  low  type, 
with  loud,  coarse  laughter  and  vile  language  coming 
out  through  the  often-opened  doors  into  the  confusion 
of  sounds  outside.  Among  the  persons  inside,  drink¬ 
ing  poor  ale  and  beer,  there  were  many  women,  accom¬ 
panied  by  babies  and  by  their  children  too  small  to  be 
left  at  home. 

Here  was  a  scene  of  intense  activity  on  the  part  of 
Booth,  his  wife,  and  his  other  assistants.  Every  noon 
he  conducted  meetings  in  front  of  his  People’s  Market 
Hall,  and  on  Sunday  nights  five  or  six  or  even  ten 
groups  of  his  speakers  led  street  meetings  in  different 
parts  of  this  gaudily  gay  region.  Following  these  meet¬ 
ings  the  groups  of  speakers  marched  to  the  hall  in  the 
People’s  Market,  which  often  was  filled  with  a  crowd 
of  a  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  persons,  and  which 
witnessed  many  a  sight  of  deep  attention  to  Booth’s 
preaching,  and  of  conversion  to  the  Saviour  of  whom 
Booth  spoke. 

As  the  busy  years  passed  by,  the  number  of  Booth’s 
converts  increased  so  rapidly  that  he  began  sending 
groups  of  them  to  other  parts  of  the  city,  and  to  other 
cities;  and  in  many  of  these  places  he  was  able  to  es¬ 
tablish  permanent  centers  of  Christian  work,  each  with 
its  growing  number  of  Christian  converts. 


112  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


AN  ARMY  TO  FIGHT  FOR  CHRIST 

There  came  a  time  when  Booth  looked  about  him  for 
a  good  name  for  his  converts  and  workers,  a  name  that 
would  be  unusual  and  yet  descriptive  of  the  hard  fight 
that  he  and  his  new  Christian  friends  were  waging  in 
behalf  of  God  and  God's  neglected  people  among  the 
poor.  He  remembered  the  “hallelujah  band”  of  years 
before,  and  he  accepted  this  nickname  as  one  of  the 
many  names  used  in  his  organization.  His  centers  of 
work,  which  now  numbered  eighty,  he  called  corps; 
his  workers  and  converts  he  called  Christian  soldiers 
and  officers,  and  at  last  he  called  his  entire  organization 
the  Salvation  Army.  This  was  the  term,  he  felt,  that 
best  expressed  the  desire  of  his  heart — to  have  men 
and  women  fighting  through  all  their  lives  for  Christ, 
their  spiritual  King. 

From  that  day  to  this,  the  Salvation  Army  has  been 
famous  in  Europe,  America,  and  in  all  the  world.  It 
reached  the  poor,  brought  them  to  Christ,  and  then  sent 
them  out  to  bring  other  persons  to  Christ.  Faster  and 
faster  it  grew.  In  two  years  the  number  of  corps,  or 
centers,  had  increased  from  80  to  162.  Six  years  later 
the  United  States  alone  had  238  such  corps.  In  time 
other  organizations  than  the  Salvation  Army,  but 
somewhat  like  it,  sprang  up  in  various  countries,  and 
these  also  have  prospered;  they  also  have  brought  the 
gospel  to  the  poor,  and  brought  the  poor  to  the  gospel. 
Yet  all  the  time  the  Salvation  Army  organized  by  Wil¬ 
liam  Booth,  its  general,  has  continued  to  grow  and  to 
be  glorified  by  God, 


A  GENERAL  OF  THE  CROSS 


113 


WHEN  PERSECUTION  WAS  IN  VAIN 

Sometimes  nowadays  a  few  people  foolishly  ridicule 
the  Salvation  Army;  yet  ridicule  does  not  stop  its  work 
or  its  growth.  In  those  early  years  on  Whitechapel 
Road  the  Army  faced  not  only  ridicule  but  also  open 
opposition  and  even  persecution,  but  the  courage  and 
consecration  of  the  Army’s  general,  officers,  and  soldiers 
kept  up  the  fight,  and  continued  to  win  victory  on 
victory. 

When  the  bands  of  soldiers  marched  from  Mile-End 
Waste  to  the  Salvation  Army  hall,  they  often  were 
pelted  with  dirt,  stones,  and  garbage.  Sticks  and  clubs 
were  used  on  them.  On  numerous  occasions  the  police, 
instead  of  protecting  them,  gruffly  bade  them  “move 
on.”  They  did  move  on,  but  it  was  because  the  ringing 
command  of  General  Booth  was  in  their  ears.  “Go 
straight  on!”  was  the  constant  rallying  cry  of  the 
general  to  his  persecuted  followers. 

At  one  time  many  a  city  organized  an  “Opposition 
Army,”  or  a  “Skeleton  Army,”  to  oppose  the  Salvation 
Army,  and  these  organizations  became  violent  in  their 
attacks  on  the  brave  soldiers  of  the  cross.  In  one  city 
fifteen  hundred  police  were  called  out  one  day  to  pro¬ 
tect  the  Christian  soldiers  from  what  threatened  to  be 
their  death.  During  one  year  669  Army  officers  and 
soldiers  including  251  women  and  23  children,  were 
brutally  assaulted,  simply  because  they  insisted  on  their 
right  to  march  through  the  streets  singing  hymns  and 
playing  tambourines  and  drums. 

Opposition  and  persecution,  we  know,  have  seldom 


114  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

harmed  a  good  cause.  Persecution  in  the  days  of  the 
early  Christian  Church  only  increased  the  fame  and 
strength  of  the  Church,  and  so  it  did  with  the  Salvation 
Army.  The  number  of  convert  soldiers  multiplied 
rapidly.  So  in  time  the  opposition  died  away,  died 
because  it  accomplished  nothing  and  because  the  Army 
by  its  successful  work  had  won  its  right  to  live. 

MEETING  THE  NEED  OF  THE  NEEDY 

Story  after  story  of  thrilling  power  could  be  told  of 
General  Booth’s  work,  of  his  converts  and  of  his  suc¬ 
cesses.  But  perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  all  would 
be  a  complete  account  of  the  astounding  number  of 
activities  the  Salvation  Army  was  performing  when  the 
famous  General  Booth  died  in  1912,  most  of  which  are 
still  carried  on. 

Here  is  a  list  of  only  the  more  noteworthy  of  these 
labors  of  the  Army  for  the  neglected  people  of  the 
world :  Free  and  cheap  breakfasts  for  children,  mid¬ 
night  soup  and  bread  for  the  homeless,  cheap  food 
stores,  old  clothes  for  families  of  the  slums,  hotels  for 
poor  men,  rescue  work  for  drunkards,  offices  for  find¬ 
ing  work  for  the  unemployed,  night  shelters  for  men 
and  women  without  homes,  relief  for  discharged  pris¬ 
oners,  first  aid  and  nursing  in  the  slums,  hospitals  for 
the  poor,  injured,  weak,  and  wounded,  hospitals  for 
lepers  of  the  Orient,  and  meetings  on  the  streets,  in 
halls,  in  homes,  and  everywhere,  to  lead  the  poor  to 
Christ. 

Much  magnificent  work  is  being  done  in  these  days 


A  FRIEND  TO  THE  WORLD’S  YOUNG  MEN  115 


by  countless  churches  and  organizations  for  the  help 
of  the  poor,  but  the  way  to  do  it  and  the  need  of  doing 
it  were  first  adequately  pointed  out  by  William  Booth, 
friend  of  the  poor  and  neglected,  and  “a  general  of  the 
cross.” 

Suggestion:  Read  a  biography  of  Booth,  and  then  tell  some 
of  the  stories  of  the  early  days  of  his  labors. 

Books  Suggested 

Railton,  “Authoritative  Life  of  General  Booth.” 

Coates,  “The  Prophet  of  the  Poor:  The  Life  Story  of 
General  Booth.” 


LESSON  XVI 

A  FRIEND  TO  THE  WORLD’S  YOUNG  MEN 

Read:  I  John  2:  14-17. 

Memory  Verse:  “He  that  doeth  the  will  of  God  abideth  for 
ever.” — T  John  2:17. 

AN  ACCIDENT  THAT  CHANGED  A  LIFE 

One  day  a  farmer’s  boy  in  Somerset  County,  Eng¬ 
land,  met  with  an  accident.  George  Williams  at  the 
age  of  fifteen  was  spending  his  days  in  doing  work 
about  his  father’s  prosperous  English  farm,  and  he 
seemed  destined  to  grow  up  on  the  farm,  and  to  end 
his  days  there.  But  the  accident  changed  this  course 
of  events. 

One  day,  as  a  storm  was  approaching,  George,  lead¬ 
ing  a  loaded  horse-drawn  hay  wagon  along  a  lane  to 
the  farmyard,  was  hurrying  to  get  the  hay  safely  home 
before  the  rain  fell.  In  a  moment  of  carelessness  he 


116  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


led  the  horses  into  a  rut,  and  in  an  instant  wagon,  hay, 
horses,  and  boy  were  piled  in  a  confused,  kicking  heap 
in  the  deep  ditch  by  the  roadside. 

Fortunately,  no  damage  was  done,  except  to  incur 
the  wrath  of  George’s  father  and  older  brothers.  These 
men  held  a  family  council,  and  passed  a  judgment  of 
exile  on  the  careless  boy.  Not  fit  to  be  a  farmer,  they 
decreed,  George  must  be  taken  to  the  nearest  city,  and 
there  apprenticed  to  a  trade. 

The  next  day  George  Williams  began  his  career  as 
an  apprentice  to  a  dry-goods  merchant  in  the  city  of 
Bridgewater.  Moreover,  he  did  very  well  in  the  busi¬ 
ness.  Although  he  seemed  to  have  failed  as  a  farmer, 
seldom  did  anyone  have  occasion  to  find  fault  with  his 
ability  as  a  merchant.  After  four  years  as  an  ap¬ 
prentice,  he  became  a  clerk  in  the  London  drapery 
house  of  Hitchcock  and  Rogers,  at  a  salary  of  forty 
pounds,  about  two  hundred  dollars  a  year.  This  was 
about  the  year  1840. 

At  first,  young  Williams  worked  behind  the  counter. 
In  time,  however,  he  was  promoted,  and  he  became 
buyer,  floorwalker,  partner,  son-in-law  of  the  senior 
member  of  the  firm,  and  finally,  on  the  death  of  his 
wife’s  father,  head  of  the  house  of  Hitchcock,  Williams, 
and  Company.  Under  this  new  name  the  firm  became 
one  of  the  famous  establishments  of  London,  and  one 
of  the  richest  and  most  important  of  its  kind  in  the 
world.  George  Williams  is  one  of  history’s  finest  ex¬ 
amples  of  a  clean,  cultured  Christian,  and  successful 
business  man. 


A  FRIEND  TO  THE  WORLD’S  YOUNG  MEN  117 


RULES  THAT  MADE  A  MAN 

The  secret  of  the  success  of  this  notable  merchant 
may  be  found  in  a  set  of  life  rules  that  were  discovered 
in  the  private  drawer  of  his  desk,  after  his  death  in 
1905.  Five  of  his  resolutions  were  as  follows : 

“That  I  determine  to  get  an  alarum  [alarm  clock], 
and  when  it  goes  off,  that  I  am  out  of  bed  before  it  has 
finished.” 

“That  I  have  certain  days  and  times  for  certain 
things,  and  strive  to  be  regular  and  punctual.” 

“That  I  read  and  meditate  upon  a  portion  of  God’s 
Word  every  morning,  and  spend  some  time  in  prayer.” 

“That  I  strive  to  live  more  in  the  spirit  of  prayer.” 

“That  I  do  not  parley,  but  resist  at  once  the  various 
temptations  which  befall  me.” 

From  these  rules  we  see  clearly  that  George  Wil¬ 
liams  was  a  man  who  was  devoted  to  duty,  hard  work, 
regular  habits,  clean  purposes,  daily  Bible-reading,  and 
prayer — a  business  and  Christian  “workman  that 
needeth  not  to  be  ashamed.”  Any  person  who  lives 
such  a  life  is  certain  to  find  it  successful  and  satisfying. 

In  George  Williams’  room  hung  a  framed  card  bear¬ 
ing  the  words,  “God  First.”  “First”  is  where  he 
always  tried  to  place  God.  He  put  him  first  in  his 
thoughts,  in  his  prayers,  in  his  work,  business,  and  ex¬ 
penditures.  In  those  early  years,  when  his  salary  was 
only  two  hundred  dollars  annually,  he  actually  gave  away 
one  hundred  and  twenty  dollars  and  all  his  life  he  was 
exceedingly  generous  in  his  gifts  both  to  men  whom  he 
thought  needed  help  and  to  the  work  of  God.  When 


118  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


it  was  hard  to  spare  money,  he  gave  it  liberally  to  all 
kinds  of  religious  work,  and  in  his  lifetime  he  gave 
away  altogether  an  immense  sum.  Yet  so  richly  did 
God  prosper  him  that  he  died  a  rich  man. 

GIVING  “his  MONEY  AND  HIS  LIFE” 

We  should  naturally  suppose  that  a  man  so  generous 
with  his  money  would  be  generous  also  with  his  time. 
This  was  certainly  true  of  George  Williams.  From  the 
time  when  he  first  went  to  London  he  was  an  earnest, 
hard-working  laborer  for  God’s  cause.  Most  of  his 
labors  were  for  the  young  men  of  London,  of  England, 
and  of  the  world,  for  this  successful  business  man  later 
became  the  founder  of  the  Young  Men’s  Christian 
Association,  the  world’s  most  influential  and  powerful 
friend  to  boys  and  young  men. 

One  day,  not  long  after  George  Williams  went  to 
London,  he  was  walking  in  the  city  when  he  saw  a 
dust-covered,  friendless,  and  poverty-stricken  young 
man  standing  under  Highgate  archway.  Williams 
stopped  and  spoke  to  the  stranger,  learning  that  the 
young  man  had  just  arrived  in  the  city  and  was  look¬ 
ing  for  work,  but  had  no  accpiaintances  there  and  no 
idea  how  he  could  find  employment. 

At  once  George  Williams  led  the  stranger  to  a  busi¬ 
ness  friend  of  his,  and  stayed  with  him  until  he  saw  the 
newcomer  given  a  position  that  provided  him  with 
money  for  food  and  clothing.  That  young  stranger 
never  forgot  this  kindness,  though  he  never  saw  George 
Williams  again. 


A  FRIEND  TO  THE  WORLD’S  YOUNG  MEN  119 

This  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  Williams  of  the  Young 
Men’s  Christian  Association  was  used  to  doing.  He 
tried  to  give  assistance  to  every  young  man  who  needed 
his  help. 

At  first  the  help  he  gave  young  men  was  not  so 
much  for  the  body,  but  as  it  was  for  the  soul ;  and  this 
is  how  the  Young  Men's  Christian  Association  really 
began.  Very  soon  after  he  commenced  work  for  Hitch¬ 
cock  and  Rogers,  George  Williams  persuaded  one  of  his 
fellow  clerks  to  join  him  in  holding  a  prayer  meeting 
in  their  room.  Soon  other  clerks  joined  them,  and 
it  was  not  long  before  twenty-seven  young  men  were 
attending  the  meetings. 

FOR  THE  YOUNG  MEN  OF  LONDON 

Each  of  these  prayer  meetings  seems  to  have  had  two 
purposes.  The  first  purpose  was  to  study  the  Bible  and 
the  second  was  to  lead  other  young  men  to  Christ. 
George  Williams  felt  that  the  one  hundred  and  forty 
clerks  employed  in  the  store  needed  this  help.  Their 
hours  were  very  long — from  seven  o’clock  in  the  morn¬ 
ing  to  nine  or  even  ten  o’clock  at  night — and  they  were 
so  tired  after  work  that  many  of  them  spent  their  short 
leisure  hours  before  bedtime  in  the  saloons,  drinking 
and  gambling. 

One  after  another  the  clerks  for  whom  Williams 
and  his  friends  prayed  were  brought  to  Christ,  some  in 
one  way,  some  in  another.  Once  the  young  Christians 
were  praying  for  a  clerk  who  made  much  fun  of  the 
praying  young  men,  and  who  responded  to  none  of  their 


120  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


efforts  to  speak  to  him  of  Christ.  So  Williams  and  his 
associates,  learning  that  this  clerk,  Edward  Rogers, 
was  very  fond  of  oysters,  invited  him  to  an  oyster 
supper.  Rogers  accepted,  and  had  so  pleasant  an  eve¬ 
ning  that  later,  in  return  for  their  hospitality,  he  con¬ 
sented  to  attend  one  of  their  prayer  meetings.  Ele 
went  once,  and  he  went  again.  Before  long  he  sur¬ 
rendered  to  their  pleadings  and  became  a  Christian. 
This  man,  Ed  ward  Rogers,  was  one  of  the  twelve  young 
men  who  afterwards  organized  the  mighty  Young 
Men’s  Christian  Association. 

All  this  time  the  activities  of  George  Williams  and 
his  friends  were  working  a  complete  change  in  the  busi¬ 
ness  house  of  their  employers.  It  was  said  in  later 
years  that  “when  he  joined  Messrs.  Hitchcock  and 
Rogers,  it  was  almost  impossible  for  a  young  man  in 
the  house  to  be  a  Christian,  and  that  three  years  after¬ 
wards  it  was  impossible  to  be  anything  else!” 

It  all  began  simply,  in  those  prayer  meetings.  Of 
these  George  Williams  once  modestly  wrote  :  “We  met, 
and  our  numbers  grew,  and  the  rooms  were  soon 
crammed.  In  answer  to  prayer,  the  Spirit  of  God  was 
present,  and  we  had  conversion  after  conversion.” 
Williams  set  the  converts  to  work  to  lead  their  friends 
to  Christ,  and  later  they  all  were  formed  into  an  active 
Christian  “Young  Men’s  Society.” 

THE  BIRTH  OF  A  MIGHTY  MOVEMENT 

On  a  Sunday  evening  George  Williams  was  walking 
across  Blackfriars  Bridge  in  company  with  a  clerk 


A  FRIEND  TO  THE  WORLD’S  YOUNG  MEN  121 

whom  he  had  brought  to  Christ,  when  suddenly  he 
turned  to  the  friend,  and  asked,  “Teddy,  are  you  pre¬ 
pared  to  make  a  sacrifice  for  Christ?” 

“If  called  on  to  do  so,  I  hope  I  can,”  was  the  reply. 

Then  Williams  outlined  a  plan  in  which  he  needed  his 
friend’s  help.  He  wanted  to  extend  the  work  of  the 
Young  Men’s  Society  to  include  some  of  the  150,000 
clerks  in  the  other  stores  of  London. 

The  friend  consented  to  help,  with  the  result  that 
about  a  month  later  these  two  met  with  ten  others  in 
Williams’  own  bedroom  and  formed  the  Drapers’  Evan¬ 
gelical  Association,  which  afterwards  changed  its  name 
to  the  Young  Men’s  Christian  Association.  This  or¬ 
ganizing  meeting  was  in  June,  1844,  less  than  three 
years  after  Williams  had  entered  London,  and  when  he 
was  only  twenty-three  years  old.  Yet  more  than  half 
of  these  founders  of  the  Young  Men’s  Christian  As¬ 
sociation  had  been  led  to  Christ  as  a  result  of  his  own 
powerful  efforts. 

First,  the  Young  Men’s  Christian  Association  met 
in  a  cheaply  rented  room  in  St.  John’s  Coffee  House, 
then  in  a  large  room  in  Radley’s  Hotel,  five  years  later, 
in  a  large  headquarters  building  in  Gresham  Street,  and 
in  time,  in  the  magnificent  Exeter  Hall.  Nowadays, 
Young  Men’s  Christian  Association  buildings  that  cost 
even  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  each  are  found 
in  many  cities  throughout  the  world. 

Even  in  those  early  days  the  Young  Men’s  Christian 
Association  had  its  library,  reading  rooms,  and  class¬ 
rooms — those  centers  for  young  men  that  now  h^ve 


122  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

developed  into  reading  and  game  rooms,  gymnasiums, 
shower  baths,  plunges,  study  rooms,  dormitories,  and 
all  the  other  features  of  Young  Men’s  Christian  As¬ 
sociation  work  with  which  all  of  us  are  familiar.  Yet 
the  main  interest  of  the  first  Young  Men’s  Christian 
Association,  as  it  is  of  the  Young  Men’s  Christian 
Association  of  to-day,  was  not  the  helping  of  young 
men's  bodies  and  minds,  but  the  helping  of  their  souls. 
All  these  attractions  for  physical  comfort  and  pleasure 
are  worth  while,  but  George  Williams  and  the  Young 
Men’s  Christian  Association  workers  of  all  times  have 
realized  that  these  are  less  important  than  the  Associa¬ 
tion’s  efforts  to  lead  young  men  to  know  Christ,  and 
to  love  and  serve  him. 

Since  the  time  when  it  was  begun,  the  Young  Men’s 
Christian  Association  has  won  a  noteworthy  success 
in  making  the  organization  not  only  a  Young  Men’s 
Association,  but  also  a  Young  Men’s  Christian  Associa¬ 
tion.  It  has  brought  thousands  of  boys  and  young  men 
to  Christ,  enabled  them  to  see  the  nobility  and  the  man¬ 
liness  of  Christ,  and  aided  them  in  a  helpful  and  happy 
service  of  Christ  and  their  fellow  men. 

HONORED  BY  MEN  AND  GOD 

Honors  piled  upon  honors  greeted  George  Williams 
before  the  end  of  his  notable  career.  Kings,  queens, 
princes,  and  presidents  rejoiced  to  sound  his  praises. 
When  he  visited  the  United  States  in  1876,  his  journey 
through  the  states  was  like  a  triumph  of  a  victorious 
Caesar  of  ancient  Rome ;  everywhere  he  was  hailed  as 


A  FRIEND  TO  THE  WORLD’S  YOUNG  MEN  123 

a  benefactor  of  the  men  of  the  world.  Oueen  Victoria 
in  1894  made  him  a  knight,  for  his  “distinguished  serv¬ 
ice  to  humanity,”  and  from  that  day  on  he  was  known 
to  all  the  world  as  Sir  George  Williams. 

Yet  none  of  these  honors  of  men,  neither  his  knight¬ 
hood  nor  his  riches,  nor  yet  the  praises  of  men,  was 
equal  to  the  peace  in  his  own  soul  with  which  Sir  George 
Williams  died.  This  was  due  to  the  realization  that 
he  had  been  enabled  to  put  “God  First”  in  all  his  life, 
and  that  the  God  whom  he  had  put  first  had  honored 
his  work  as  a  friend  to  the  world' s  young  men.  He  had 
put  God  foremost  in  his  life,  and  God  put  him  foremost 
among  the  men  of  earth  who  live  for  the  good  of 
humanity. 

Suggestion:  Try  to  have  a  sympathetic  World  War  veteran 
tell  of  what  he  experienced  of  the  war  work  of  the  American 
Young  Men’s  Christian  Association.  Thirteen  thousand 
Association  secretaries  worked  among  the  American  soldiers 
at  home,  and  the  same  number  among  American  soldiers 
abroad.  Nearly  $155,000,000  was  spent,  in  war  work  by  the 
American  Association.  Invite  a  Young  Men’s  Christian  Asso¬ 
ciation  secretary  to  tell  of  the  boys’  work  of  the  local 
Association. 

Book  Suggested 

Williams,  J.  E.  H.,  “Sir  George  Williams:  The  Father  of 
the  Red  Triangle.” 


124  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


LESSON  XVII 

FROM  COBBLER’S  BENCH  TO  INDIA’S  STRAND 
Read:  Matt.,  ch.  28. 

Memory  Verse:  “Go  ye  therefore,  and  make  disciples  of  all 
the  nations.” — Matt.  28:  19. 


A  BOY  WITH  A  WILL  TO  WIN 

In  an  English  village,  about  the  time  of  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  our  French  and  Indian  War,  there  lived  a  boy 
whose  hobby  was  collecting  birds,  birds’  eggs,  and  in¬ 
sects.  Many  an  adventure  he  had  in  obtaining  the 
specimens  that  were  caged  for  a  time  in  his  room,  dis¬ 
played  on  its  shelves,  or  fastened  to  its  walls.  More 
than  once,  indeed,  he  had  risked  his  life  in  climbing 
perilous  heights  for  the  birds  and  eggs  that  he  prized. 

One  day  he  spied  a  birds'  nest  in  a  particularly  re¬ 
mote  part  of  a  tree  that  was  hard  to  climb,  yet  he  de¬ 
termined  to  get  the  nest.  Up  the  tree  he  climbed, 
higher  and  higher’  only  to  fail  after  all.  Worse  than 
that,  he  fell  from  the  tree  and  picked  himself  up  shaken 
and  bruised. 

But  he  did  not  give  up.  As  soon  as  he  was  able  to  go 
out  of  the  house  again,  back  he  went  to  that  very  tree, 
climbed  it,  and  this  time  obtained  the  coveted  nest.  He 
was  a  boy  who  objected  to  giving  in  to  any  obstacle. 

Forty  years  later  there  lived  in  India  a  man  who  was 
superintendent  of  a  printing  plant.  In  this  office  a 
translation  of  the  Bible  into  one  of  the  native  languages 
was  being  printed,  a  translation  that  this  man  had  made 


COBBLER’S  BENCH  TO  INDIA’S  STRAND  125 


with  much  toil  and  perseverance.  One  night  a  fire 
broke  out,  and  the  printing  office,  press,  type,  and  even 
the  precious  translation,  were  destroyed.  Fifty  thou¬ 
sand  dollars’  worth  of  property  was  burned;  the  fruit 
of  years  of  labor  seemed  utterly  gone. 

But  this  man  refused  to  be  dismayed.  He  called  in 
some  workmen  and  with  them  set  to  work  in  the  ruins, 
from  which  he  recovered  some  melted  metal.  From 
this  he  fashioned  new  type,  and  in  two  months  the 
printers  were  once  more  at  their  work.  Meanwhile,  he 
had  appealed  for  money  to  buy  more  material,  and  in 
two  months  all  that  he  needed  was  given.  He  began 
to  translate  the  Bible  over  again,  and  because  it  was 
easier  the  second  time,  in  seven  months  the  work  was 
done.  Within  about  a  year  the  great  disaster,  which  at 
first  had  seemed  fatal,  had  been  completely  conquered. 

The  man,  like  the  boy  in  the  English  village,  objected 
to  giving  in  to  any  difficulty  or  obstacle  in  his  way.  It 
is  no  wonder,  for  the  man  was  the  boy  grown  up.  He 
is  known  to  history  as  William  Carey,  the  father  of 
modern  missions. 

A  SHOEMAKER  WHO  STUDIED  GREEK 

All  his  life  long  Carey  faced  immense  difficulties,  and 
all  his  life  he  kept  conquering  them.  He  was  the  son 
of  a  poorly  paid  schoolmaster,  and  he  had  to  go  to 
work  at  fourteen  years  of  age,  with  only  a  little  school¬ 
ing;  yet  he  got  himself  an  education,  and  became  one  of 
the  famous  learned  men  of  his  time.  After  boyhood  he 
was  a  shoemaker,  or  cobbler,  always  poor  and  under  the 


126  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

necessity  of  working  hard  and  long;  yet  even  while 
he  worked  he  continued  studying  and  learning. 

One  day  Carey,  then  a  very  young  man,  saw  a  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  New  Testament  that  contained  many 
Greek  words.  What  these  were  he  could  not  imagine, 
for  he  knew  no  Greek.  Laboriously  he  copied  some  of 
the  queer-looking  words,  and  walked  nine  miles  and 
back  in  order  to  ask  a  learned  man  what  they  meant. 
From  that  time  on  he  studied  Greek  and  other 
languages,  even  while  he  was  at  his  cobbler’s  bench. 
He  kept  Greek  and  Latin  books  on  his  bench,  and  while 
he  cobbled  he  studied. 

With  all  his  difficulties,  Carey  became  in  time  one 
of  the  noted  naturalists  of  his  day,  and  also  one  of  its 
most  famous  authorities  on  the  languages  of  the  world, 
especially  those  of  the  people  of  Asia.  Yet  in  the 
Christian  Church  his  fame  rests  not  so  much  on  these 
remarkable  attainments,  as  on  his  work  as  a  foreign 
missionary. 

WHEN  FOREIGN  MISSIONS  WERE  UNKNOWN 

To  be  a  missionary  took  all  the  determination  and 
will  power  that  Carey  possessed.  He  lived  in  a  day 
when  foreign  missions  were  practically  unknown. 
Christians  seemed  to  have  forgotten  that  Christ’s  last 
command  to  his  disciples  was,  “Make  disciples  of  all 
the  nations. ”  Indeed,  the  subject  seems  never  to  have 
been  mentioned  in  those  days. 

But  Carey  mentioned  it.  After  a  while  he  became  a 
Baptist  minister  at  tbe  same  time  when  he  was  a  cobbler 


COBBLER’S  BENCH  TO  INDIA’S  STRAND  127 

(his  salary  at  first  was  only  ten  pounds,  about  forty- 
nine  dollars,  a  year),  and  as  a  minister  he  saw  in  his 
Bible  the  command  of  Jesus.  He  came  in  a  short  time 
to  believe  that  the  Christian  Church  ought  to  send 
missionaries  to  the  heathen  people  of  the  world.  He 
made  a  large  map  of  the  world,  using  big  pieces  of 
paper  that  he  pasted  together  and  hung  on  the  wall  of 
his  cobbler’s  shop.  On  the  part  of  the  map  representing 
each  heathen  land,  he  wrote  all  the  information  that  he 
could  gather,  from  other  persons  and  from  his  reading, 
concerning  the  religion  and  customs  of  the  country. 
Always  he  was  thinking  of  the  subject  of  foreign 
missions. 

Time  after  time  Carey  mentioned  the  matter  to  other 
ministers,  but  he  was  laughed  at  or  even  scolded  for  his 
pains.  Once  he  asked  a  meeting  of  Baptist  ministers 
to  answer  the  question  whether  it  is  not  the  duty  of 
all  ministers  of  the  gospel  to  “make  disciples  of  all  the 
nations,”  but  they  refused  to  answer  it. 

Yet  all  the  time  Carey’s  talk  about  the  subject  was 
having  its  effect.  One  year  he  preached  a  stirring 
sermon  on  the  duty  of  missions  at  a  meeting  of  the 
ministers  of  his  district  and  they  were  visibly  impressed. 
In  this  sermon  he  used  these  two  ringing  challenges : 
“Expect  great  things  from  God.  Attempt  great  things 
for  God.’’ 

THE  FIRST  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  SOCIETY 

At  once  the  ministers  voted  to  take  steps  to  send 
missionaries  to  foreign  lands.  Soon  a  new  organiza- 


128  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

tion  was  formed,  the  Baptist  Missionary  Society.  The 
motto  of  the  society  became  the  two  famous  clauses  of 
Carey’s  famous  sermon.  At  once  Carey  offered  him¬ 
self  as  a  missionary,  and  he  and  another  man  were 
directed  to  prepare  to  sail  for  India.  At  last  the  cob¬ 
bler  preacher  had  overcome  the  greatest  obstacle  in  the 
way  of  modern  missions. 

Even  now,  however,  his  difficulties  were  not  over. 
India  was  under  the  control  of  the  East  India  Company, 
which  was  violently  opposed  to  Carey’s  project.  He 
and  his  friend  went  aboard  one  of  the  company’s  ships 
that  was  about  to  sail  to  India  and  paid  their  fare,  but 
at  the  last  moment  they  were  set  ashore  and  the  ship 
left  without  them;  Carey  did  not  even  get  all  his  pas¬ 
sage  money  refunded. 

Within  a  few  days,  however,  a  ship  sailing  under  the 
Danish  flag  was  about  to  leave  for  India,  and  the  two 
missionaries,  having  solicited  missionary  gifts  to  pay 
their  more  expensive  passage  on  this  boat,  were  ac¬ 
cepted  as  passengers.  They  sailed  at  last,  on  June  13, 
1793,  the  first  modern  Protestant  missionaries  to 
heathen  lands. 

“disciples  of  all  the  nations” 

Arrived  in  India  after  a  tedious  five  months'  voyage, 
the  missionaries  at  once  faced  opposition  from  the 
government,  together  with  poverty,  illness,  and  other 
troubles,  yet  courageously  they  began  work.  Carey 
studied  the  languages  of  India,  founded  schools,  traveled 
in  the  country  preaching  the  gospel  to  the  people,  trans- 


COBBLER’S  BENCH  TO  INDIA’S  STRAND  129 

lated  the  Bible,  and  set  up  a  printing  press,  much  of 
the  time  supporting  his  family  by  working  in  an  indigo 
factory  and  by  killing  wild  game  with  his  gun. 

After  about  six  years  of  patient  work  that  seemed  to 
have  no  results,  Carey  and  his  assistants  were  joined 
by  four  more  Baptist  missionaries.  Then  the  work 
was  redoubled.  Two  by  two  the  workers  went  about 
the  streets  and  into  the  bazaars  and  heathen  temples, 
singing  Christian  hymns  that  Carey  had  written,  and 
inviting  the  people  to  come  to  their  homes  to  talk 
about  Christianity. 

On  the  day  after  Christmas,  seven  years  after  Carey 
reached  India,  he  baptized  his  first  Christian  convert. 
This  man,  Krishnu,  boldly  broke  the  rules  of  caste,  the 
religious  and  social  laws  of  his  people,  by  eating  a  meal 
with  the  missionaries  in  order  to  prove  his  complete 
giving  up  of  his  heathen  religion.  As  soon  as  news  of 
this  meal  reached  his  fellow  countrymen,  Krishnu  was 
seized  by  an  enraged  mob,  and  haled  before  a  magis¬ 
trate.  But  the  man  in  justice  released  the  courageous 
Christian. 

Other  conversions  followed  rapidly.  Before  long 
several  hundred  persons  were  being  baptized  every  year, 
and  later  thousands.  Of  the  new  Christians  in  a  heathen 
land,  an  overwhelming  proportion  remained  true  to 
their  Saviour  in  spite  of  persecution,  privation,  and  peril. 

A  MAN  OF  MIGHTY  LABORS 

Most  impressive  of  all  Carey’s  achievements  was  his 
work  in  translation  of  the  Bible.  Within  twenty-five 


130  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

years  he  and  his  helpers  gave  the  Bible,  or  parts  of  the 
Bible,  to  peoples  who  spoke  forty  different  languages 
and  dialects.  The  names  of  these  tongues  may  seem 
strange  to  us.  These  are  some  of  them  :  Sanskrit,  Ben¬ 
gali,  Hindustani,  Mahratti,  Oriya,  Kurnata,  Telugu, 
Burman,  Assamese,  Tibetan,  and  Malay. 

Yet  the  obstacles  to  making  these  translations  were  so 
great  that  only  a  man  of  Carey’s  resistless  determina¬ 
tion  could  have  conquered  them.  He  had  no  books  to 
help  him;  grammars  and  dictionaries  were  unknown, 
and  had  to  be  made  by  himself;  and  printing  was  un¬ 
heard  of  by  the  natives  of  India.  Yet  Carey  succeeded, 
and  received  the  gratitude  of  the  people  of  Asia,  who 
later  read  his  translations,  and  of  all  the  Christian 
world. 

The  labors  of  William  Carey  in  India  seem  beyond 
belief  because  of  their  intensity  and  variety.  The 
great  surprise  regarding  them  all  is  the  fact  that  Carey 
was  naturally  indolent  and  realized  his  indolence.  He 
worked  incessantly,  nevertheless,  and  he  accomplished 
an  imposing  array  of  successes. 

Carey  established  a  botanical  garden,  and  published 
a  standard  work  on  the  plant  life  of  India.  He  founded 
an  agricultural  society,  and  started  a  magnificent  mu¬ 
seum  of  natural  history.  He  founded  a  college,  and 
translated  a  Sanskrit  poem,  which  was  published  in 
three  volumes.  He  opposed  the  cruel  custom  of  killing 
babies,  and  saw  it  abolished;  he  appealed  against  the 
murderous  custom  of  burning  widows  to  death  after 
their  husbands  died,  and  he  lived  to  see  the  practice 


COBBLER’S  BENCH  TO  INDIA’S  STRAND  131 


forbidden.  Best  of  all,  lie  preached  the  gospel  to  the 
people  of  India,  and  beheld  them  turning  to  his  Master 
by  the  thousands. 

ALONG  THE  HIGHWAY  OF  SUCCESS 

All  this  was  done  by  a  boy  who  had  the  will  to  win, 
by  a  cobbler  who  had  the  determination  to  learn,  by  a 
minister  who  had  the  courage  to  plead  for  missions, 
and  by  a  missionary  who,  though  naturally  fond  of 
ease,  had  a  Christian  consecration  to  labor  as  few  men 
have  labored,  for  the  cause  of  Christ  and  his  Church. 

It  is  a  long  road  from  a  cobbler’s  bench  to  “India’s 
coral  strands,”  but  William  Carey  traveled  that  road 
with  determination  and  with  abounding  success. 

Suggestion:  Sing  “From  Greenland’s  Icy  Mountains.”  In 
this  lesson,  and  in  Lessons  XVIII  to  XXII,  show  the  class 
such  simple  curios  of  the  land  mentioned  as  you  can  almost 
certainly  obtain  in  your  own  community.  Describe  some  old- 
India  customs,  such  as  suttee,  infanticide,  the  Juggernaut,  and 
the  caste.  To  “break  caste”  in  India  is  still  often  equivalent 
to  exiling  oneself  from  friends  and  relatives,  from  the 
respect  of  one’s  countrymen,  and  from  one’s  livelihood. 

Books  Suggested 

Walsh,  “Modern  Heroes  of  the  Mission  Field,”  page  31-62. 

Myers,  Culross,  and  Smith,  G.,  Biographies  of  Carey. 


132  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

LESSON  XVIII 

THE  FATHER  OF  CHINESE  MISSIONS 
Read:  Ps.  107:  1-13 

Memory  Verse:  “As  far  as  the  east  is  from  the  west, 

So  far  hath  he  removed  our  transgres¬ 
sions  from  us.” — Ps.  103:  12. 


A  HARD  TASK,  AND  WHY  IT  WAS  DONE 

In  the  quiet  of  a  certain  room  of  the  British  Museum 
a  man  sat  reading.  Looking  up  from  his  book,  he  hap¬ 
pened  to  see  near  him  a  young  man  studying  a  volume 
written  in  letters  the  like  of  which  the  older  man  never 
before  had  seen.  “In  what  language  are  you  studying, 
may  I  ask?”  he  inquired,  approaching  the  busy  student. 

“Chinese/1  was  the  quiet  reply. 

“And  do  you  understand  it,  then?” 

“I  am  trying  to  do  so,”  responded  the  student,  “but 
it  is  curiously  difficult.” 

“Why,  then,  are  you  toiling  so  hard  on  it?”  came 
the  question. 

A  strange  reply  was  made  by  the  young  man.  “I 
do  not  know,”  he  said.  “All  I  know  is  that  I  feel  that 
I  must  do  so.  If  this  difficult  language  can  be  learned 
by  a  European  who  puts  all  his  zeal  and  perseverance 
into  the  task,  then  I  mean  to  learn  it.” 

The  young  man  was  laboring  over  the  hardest  lan¬ 
guage  in  all  the  world ;  he  did  not  know  whether  it  was 
possible  to  learn  it;  and  he  did  not  know  why  he  was 
doing  this  extremely  difficult  task.  But  God  knew. 


THE  FATHER  OF  CHINESE  MISSIONS  133 

It  was  God  who  had  led  him  to  the  decision  to  study 
Chinese,  and  who  had  given  him  the  perseverance  to 
stick  to  the  task. 

For  God  had  great  things  for  this  young  man  to  do. 
The  young  student  was  Robert  Morrison,  who  within 
about  two  years  was  to  be  the  first  Protestant  missionary 
to  the  Chinese.  In  China  he  was  to  be  a  mighty  power  as 
a  translator  of  the  Bible.  For  this  reason  God  was 
leading  him  in  a  way  that  the  young  man  did  not  then 
understand. 

LED  BY  GOD 

All  his  life  Robert  Morrison  was  led  by  God.  Even 
while  as  a  boy  he  was  working  for  his  father  at  the 
trade  of  making  lasts  for  shoes,  he  was  learning  how  to 
be  a  hard  worker.  When  his  uncle  sent  him  to  school 
for  a  little  while,  God  helped  him  to  learn  fast,  and 
to  cultivate  his  memory  to  a  remarkable  degree.  When 
he  was  twenty-one  years  old,  he  gave  himself  to  God, 
and  almost  at  once  God  led  him  to  decide  to  be  a  foreign 
missionary,  though  this  was  only  about  ten  years  after 
the  first  foreign  missionary,  Carey,  had  sailed  for  India. 

In  those  days  Morrison  did  not  know  to  what  foreign 
country  he  would  go.  For  a  time  he  thought  that  he 
ought  to  work  in  Africa,  yet  he  seemed  to  care  little 
just  where  he  should  go.  What  he  did  pray  for 
earnestly  was  that  God  would  send  him  where  the  dif¬ 
ficulties  were  the  greatest.  While  he  prayed,  he  waited 
and  worked. 

A  new  missionary  society  had  been  established  in 
England  three  years  after  the  formation  of  Carey’s 


134  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Baptist  Missionary  Society,  and  to  this  organization, 
the  London  Missionary  Society,  Morrison  offered  him¬ 
self.  The  organization  accepted  him,  and  sent  him  to 
its  academy  at  Gosport,  England,  there  to  prepare  for 
foreign  missionary  service  ;  but  it  could  not  tell  him  to 
what  foreign  field  he  ought  to  go. 

In  time,  however,  the  London  Missionary  Society 
determined  to  send  Morrison  to  China,  and  it  so  in¬ 
formed  him.  Only  then  did  the  young  man  understand 
why  he  had  felt  impelled  to  try  to  study  the  Chinese  lan¬ 
guage.  Now  that  he  knew,  he  doubled  his  efforts.  For 
two  years  he  studied  not  only  Chinese,  but  also  medi¬ 
cine,  mathematics,  astronomy,  and  other  sciences,  in 
order  to  minister  to  the  people  of  China’s  ancient  and 
highly  developed  civilization. 

WHAT  GOD  COULD  DO  FOR  CHINA 

On  his  way  to  China,  Morrison  stopped  at  New  York 
City.  There  a  shipowner,  with  whom  he  was  making 
arrangements  for  sailing,  rather  sneeringly  inquired, 
“Mr.  Morrison,  do  you  really  expect  to  make  any  im¬ 
pression  at  all  on  the  idolatry  of  the  Chinese  empire?” 

“No,  sir,"  replied  Morrison,  with  dignity.  “But  I 
expect  that  God  will  do  so." 

Well  it  was  for  the  young  missionary  that  he  de¬ 
pended  not  on  his  own  efforts,  but  on  God's,  for  when 
he  reached  Canton,  China,  in  1807,  he  found  himself 
confronted  by  tremendous  difficulties.  The  people  and 
the  government  were  bitterly  opposed  to  foreigners 
and  to  Christianity,  and  they  did  all  they  could  to 


THE  FATHER  OF  CHINESE  MISSIONS  135 

hinder  his  work.  He  needed  Chinese  teachers  and  other 
helpers,  but  these  were  hard  to  obtain  for  they  served 
him  at  the  risk  of  their  lives. 

For  a  time  all  of  Morrison’s  work  had  to  be  done  in 
secret.  Fie  lived  in  a  cellar  under  the  street,  with  a 
dim  earthenware  lamp  and  a  huge  English  book 
propped  up  before  him,  the  latter  to  keep  the  prying- 
eyes  of  Chinese  enemies  from  seeing  his  work  of  trans¬ 
lating  the  Bible.  Those  prying  eyes  were  everywhere. 
They  peered  into  his  work,  into  his  food,  into  his 
manner  of  dress,  and  they  did  their  best  to  pry  into  his 
very  thoughts. 

Yet  Morrison  was  thinking  less  of  the  suspicious 
opposition  of  the  people  just  then  than  of  their  later 
frank  friendliness,  to  which  he  looked  forward  with 
faith  and  confidence.  These  people  of  Canton  might 
antagonize  him  for  a  while,  he  realized,  but  he  looked 
beyond  the  present,  and  beyond  them  all. 

A  LAND  THAT  TEEMED  WITH  NEEDY  SOULS 

Morrison  saw  not  only  the  men  who  thrust  them¬ 
selves  uninvited  into  his  cellar  home,  those  who  in  a 
ceaseless  stream  passed  along  the  dirty,  dark,  and  nar¬ 
row  street  over  his  head,  and  those  that  lived  in  the 
thousands  of  house  boats  that  plied  up  and  down  the 
river  near  by.  Fie  thought  also  of  the  people  in  the 
villages  farther  up  the  river,  in  the  cities,  in  the  moun¬ 
tains,  and  on  the  rich  plains  of  inner  China,  and  in  the 
towns  and  cities  to  the  north,  extending  in  an  ap¬ 
parently  endless  chain  to  Peking  itself,  the  capital  of  this 


136  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


teeming  mass  of  yellow-skinned,  slant-eyed  people. 
Morrison  saw  their  need  of  God,  and  he  knew  that  God 
would  bless  him  in  his  labors  for  them. 

There  were  years  during  which  this  missionary  in  a 
strange  land  adopted  all  the  customs  of  the  people 
among  whom  he  lived.  He  cut  off  his  hair,  and  wore 
a  queue;  he  let  his  finger  nails  grow  long  and  pointed; 
he  ate  strange  native  foods,  and  ate  them  with  chop¬ 
sticks;  he  walked  about  the  crowded  city  clad  in  Chinese 
robes  and  awkward,  shuffling  Chinese  shoes  of  cloth. 
Even  after  he  had  given  up  his  Chinese  dress  because 
it  seemed  both  inconvenient  and  needless,  he  lived  con¬ 
stantly  with  two  Chinese  men  servants,  talked  Chinese 
with  them,  prayed  in  Chinese  with  them,  and  spoke  his 
own  private  prayers  to  God  in  their  own  singsong 
language. 

By  these  means,  coupled  with  untiring  labors  and  a 
constant  dependence  on  God,  Morrison  grew  in  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  people’s  speech,  and  slowly  he  grew  also  in 
favor  with  the  people  themselves.  After  seven  years 
in  China,  he  had  the  happiness  of  baptizing  his  first 
convert,  a  man  named  Tsae  Ako;  and  as  the  years 
passed  God  added  other  converts.  One  of  these,  Leang 
Afa,  became  the  first  Chinese  preacher  of  the  gospel. 

A  BOOK  FOR  A  HALF  BILLION  PEOPLE 

Ceaselessly  the  missionary  worked  on  his  translation 
of  the  Scriptures,  and  it  was  in  this  work  that  he  won 
his  greatest  triumph.  With  difficulties  like  those  of  Carey 
in  India,  Morrison  within  seven  years  had  put  the  New 


THE  FATHER  OF  CHINESE  MISSIONS 


137 


Testament  into  Chinese,  and  within  five  years  more  he 
had  published  the  whole  Bible  in  the  native  tongue. 

This  was  a  remarkable  success,  for  it  meant  that 
Morrison  has  given  the  Bible  to  more  people  than  has 
any  other  translator.  The  written  Chinese  language  is 
read  with  ease  not  only  in  China  but  also  in  Korea,  in 
Japan,  and  in  Formosa,  by  people  who  number  quite 
five  hundred  million.  So  when  Morrison's  Chinese 
Bible  was  in  print,  the  Scriptures  had  been  made  ready, 
for  the  first  time,  for  one  third  of  all  the  people  on  the 
face  of  the  globe. 

Giving  the  Bible  to  the  Chinese,  Koreans,  and 
Japanese  was  the  remarkable  achievement  of  Morrison 
for  the  benefit  of  the  people  of  the  lands  that  he  in¬ 
fluenced,  but  it  was  not  the  end  of  his  labors.  Much 
of  his  life  in  China  was  spent  in  preparing  for  the  mis¬ 
sionaries  who  were  sure  to  come  after  him.  For  their 
help  he  wrote,  with  intense  toil,  an  immense  dictionary 
of  the  Chinese  language,  a  book  that  contained  forty 
thousand  queer-looking  Chinese  characters,  with  their 
meanings,  and  that  was  so  huge  that  it  cost  nearly  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  to  print  it. 

Every  missionary  who  ever  has  served  Christ  in 
China  has  depended  for  his  success  upon  the  work  of 
Morrison  in  preparing  both  this  dictionary  and  his 
translation  of  the  Bible.  And  these  missionaries  have 
been  exceedingly  numerous.  First  they  were  only  one  or 
two;  then  they  were  a  half  dozen;  then  a  hundred,  a 
thousand,  and  many  thousands.  They  have  gone  to 
China  from  Europe,  America,  Australia,  New  Zealand, 


138  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


and  even  from  Korea,  which  now  is  a  land  that  has  a 
mighty  host  of  earnest  Christians.  None  of  these  mis¬ 
sionaries  in  China  could  have  worked  with  any  power 
at  all  if  it  had  not  been  that  Robert  Morrison,  the  father 
of  Chinese  missions,  had  gone  there  before  them. 

CHINESE  CHRISTIANS  BY  THE  MILLION 

We  all  know  that  the  missionaries  to  China  have 
worked  with  success — success  that  is  a  marvelous 
proof  of  the  power  of  God  to  bring  even  the  strange 
people  of  China  to  the  Saviour  of  all  men.  By  1914 
that  first  Christian  convert  of  the  year  1814  had  be¬ 
come  nearly  half  a  million  Protestant  Christians,  be¬ 
sides  a  million  or  more  enrolled  Catholic  converts. 
In  these  days  the  number  is  growing  by  the  tens  of 
thousands  almost  every  year.  Chinese  Christians  are 
influential  in  the  business  and  in  the  government  of  the 
Chinese  republic,  and  in  many  a  city  and  country  home 
and  church  they  are  living  a  conquering  life  of  love  for 
God  and  of  zeal  for  the  souls  of  men. 

Robert  Morrison’s  life  was  hard  but  not  long;  he  was 
only  fifty-two  years  old  when  he  died,  worn  out  by  his 
tireless  labors  for  Christ  and  his  Church.  Yet  he 
labored  cheerfully.  “It  is  my  duty,"  he  often  said.  He 
toiled  with  a  constant  sense  of  dependence  on  God ; 
“look  up!  look  up!"  was  another  expression  often  on 
his  lips.  He  looked  up  to  God  in  faith,  and  God  looked 
down  to  him  in  blessing  and  in  gifts  of  strength  for 
all  of  Morrison's  labors  as  the  triumphant  father  of 
Chinese  missions. 


AMERICA’S  FIRST  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  139 


Suggestions:  Use  a  map  of  the  world  with  Lessons  XVIII 
to  XXIII.  To-day  point  out  India,  the  field  of  Carey,  and  then 
show  that  Morrison’s  work  combined  with  his  to  cover 
practically  all  the  far  east  of  the  mainland  of  Asia.  Show 
also  the  great  extent  of  China  and  the  region  in  which  the 
written  Chinese  language  is  read — all  of  China  and  all  of 
Japan’s  dominions,  including  Korea,  Formosa,  and  the 
Loochoo  Islands. 

Books  Suggested 

Morrison,  Mrs.  E.,  and  Townsend,  Biographies  of  Morrison. 

See  also  Walsh  (Lesson  XVII),  pages  95-118. 


LESSON  XIX 

AMERICA’S  FIRST  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY 

Read:  Isa.  43:  1-9. 

Memory  Verse:  “Ye  are  my  witnesses,  saith  Jehovah.’' — 
Isa.  43:  10. 

CAPTURED  BY  A  FRENCH  MAN  OF  WAR 

Great  excitement  broke  out  one  day  in  the  year  1811 
aboard  the  English  sailing  vessel,  Packet,  en  route  jppm 
Boston  to  an  English  port.  A  French  rnanrpfrjWr 
had  been  sighted,  and  as  France  was, at  YOfb  Epg- 
land,  capture  by  the  French  vessel  $ecwdr<f?i[taip.5,  ;P;i^- 
may  was  on  the  faces  of  officers,.  creAvhhd  ^ss.enge^, 
and  particularly. oh  that  dir, a < young i |^T6?ic^LJ-rSMs 
young  man,-  Adonitam  Judsoh  by-Maine;  was  jqii.hip.Yjajy 
to <  Ehglan d  on. i  an ; -.important  .errand]  and,  j)efjcpuldfin$t 
affdrd'ito  waste  ahyTimb  ima->Ft*eii|ichj jpTisohf  i j  j  u  ?/  _ 
ug/Wet  this)  proved  /tOi  i l>£iihiS'  >fu tnne-  >■  JEhfl nW3>%v$?$ej[ , 
-I U  Invincible :  dtf apoleo%  seized  ithp  ripngfelfc  i  sjjjp ; ..a£  t  ta 
prize  of  wir^i  and;  confined-in  itAown.  (lack  [and-  noisonte 


140  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


hold  most  of  its  captives,  including  young  Judson. 
After  some  days,  through  the  intercession  of  the  ship’s 
doctor,  he  was  rescued  from  that  brutal  confinement, 
and  given  an  upper  cabin  berth.  The  doctor’s  attention 
had  been  drawn  to  Judson  by  seeing  the  young  Ameri¬ 
can  translating  his  Hebrew  Bible  into  Latin. 

Arrived  in  a  French  port,  Judson  attracted  the 
interest  of  an  American  there,  while  the  captives  were 
being  marched  to  prison,  by  shouting  aloud  his  Ameri¬ 
can  citizenship  in  English  for  the  benefit  of  any 
American  who  might  be  within  hearing.  His  new 
friend  soon  afterwards  visited  him  in  his  prison 
dungeon,  and  contrived  to  effect  his  escape.  For 
weeks  Judson  lay  in  hiding  in  France,  before  he  made 
his  way  to  England,  performed  his  errand,  and  at  last 
xeturned  in  safety  to  his  native  land. 

ON  AN  ERRAND  FOR  THE  CHURCH 

Adventures  similar  to  this,  some  even  more  thrilling, 
occurred  often  in  the  eventful  career  of  Adoniram  Jud¬ 
son,  who  was  later  to  be  America’s  first  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary.  His  errand  in  England  was  to  try  to  persuade 
the  London  Missionary  Society,  which  had  sent  Robert 
Morrison  to  China,  to  aid  the  Congregational  and 
Presbyterian  Churches  of  this  country  in  sending  Jud¬ 
son  and  three  of  his  friends  as  missionaries  to  Asia. 

As  it  turned  out,  however,  Judson’ s  voyage  to  Eng¬ 
land  was  unnecessary,  for  the  new  interest  in  foreign 
missions  in  the  United  States  grew  so  rapidly  that  the 
help  of  the  English  society  was  not  required. 


AMERICA’S  FIRST  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  141 


The  year  before  Juclson  went  to  England,  he  and  five 
of  his  friends,  all  students  in  Andover  Theological 
Seminary,  had  requested  the  Congregational  Church  to 
send  them  out  to  the  foreign  field,  with  the  result  that 
the  Congregationalists,  together  with  some  Presby¬ 
terians,  organized  the  first  American  foreign  mis¬ 
sionary  society.  This  organization,  formed  in  1810, 
was  the  American  Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign 
Missions,  which  sent  out  numerous  Presbyterian  mis¬ 
sionaries,  along  with  representatives  of  the  Congrega¬ 
tional  churches  themselves,  until  the  organization,  in 
1837,  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions. 
The  first  missionaries  of  the  “American  Board”  were 
Judson  and  three  of  his  friends,  who  in  1811  were 
appointed  to  serve  in  some  land  in  Asia;  just  what 
country  of  Asia  was  not  decided  until  later. 

THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  A  THRILLING  LIFE 

Numerous  interesting  things  are  told  us  of  the  early 
life  of  Judson.  He  could  read  when  he  was  three  years 
old.  By  the  time  he  was  ten,  he  was  singularly  skilled 
in  solving  hard  problems  in  mathematics.  When  he 
was  graduated  from  college,  he  led  his  class.  After 
leaving  college  he  taught  school,  became  an  actor,  and 
toured  the  country  in  search  of  excitement.  Only  the 
unexpected  news  that  his  chum,  an  unconverted  man 
like  himself,  had  died  the  night  before  in  the  room 
next  his  own  in  a  country  hotel,  checked  Judson  in 
his  wildness  and  brought  him  to  Christ.  From  that 
time  onward  he  was  an  earnest,  zealous  Christian. 


142  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


After  his  preparation  for  the  ministry  in  Andover 
Seminary,  Judson  made  his  memorable  voyage  to  Eng¬ 
land,  and  the  same  year  he  sailed  with  his  wife  for 
India.  Here  he  was  a  fellow  laborer  with  the  famous 
William  Carey,  for  by  this  time  Judson,  too,  had  become 
a  Baptist.  During  nearly  all  his  thirty-seven  years  in 
Asia,  Judson  was  a  representative  of  the  Baptist  Mis¬ 
sionary  Union,  another  American,  missionary  society 
organized  about  this  time.  ,u  iuo  in 

Just  where  Judson. and  hisvvife  \here  to  do  their  work 
was  not  determined  [until  after-: 'they  had  arrived  in 
India.  They  might  haive  . labored,  in  India  itself  had  not 
the  val^ay&Hliiostile  r  East'  India;  Company  ordered  them 
tO'^leat e^tllie ffcouhtry^brSbrithey  decided  to  go  to  the 
lie igh boiun g ;  1  and  of  Brw ltn a«  m  <  T o i  B ur m a  they  went,  but 
they  had  many!  adventures'  before  They!  reached  their 
destination. 

3JU  ozijjmht  a  ao  somT/[y iioaa 


yh £9  a rit  .m $ j-  nm-Mi ,  ?<wL 


r i kT o 'avoid: fthe- >watoMul‘  eye?  eT.  the!  East  India  Coni- 
ipdhiyy  the f  iiefwn  missionaries)  got/  themselves  smuggled 
aboard  W  vessel  sailing,  from  Calcutta.  bThfey  were  dis- 
cov^red.and'jfohdedio ieay.erthe  ship.  (l  (j)nqe  more  they 
'got  onboard,  and/ this,  time  the  I  vessel >  s'aijed  with  them. 
Arrived)  at  Madras,  .they  learned  that  Their  coming  had 
been  Ireported/ab  once; ito The  icjompany'-s .representative 
•'there,  Ar  they>  were  compelled  toJeave  immediately  in 
idrdercTo!  es<hapb  beingjserit  back/to  America. 
jerlTheccthly  ship; they mould  gdtat  ohcfenwas  a  wretched 
littlefW8feel,iiQh  whichTbey f  came  Uose-.to  -sh  ip  wreck  on  a 


AMERICA'S  FIRST  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  143 


coast  where  if  they  escaped  the  waves,  death  from  the 
natives  was  a  certainty.  However,  after  weeks  of  peril 
and  suffering  from  the  rough  seas,  the  Americans  safely 
reached  Rangoon,  to  begin  their  useful  life  as  Christian 
ambassadors  to  Burma. 

Of  that  thrilling  and  abundantly  useful  career  we  can 
now  consider  only  one  or  two  of  the  most  interesting 
features.  The  Judsons  were  in  a  land  of  heathenism, 
slavery,  lawlessness,  and  danger.  The  ruler  was  a 
despotic  tyrant ;  and  the  people  were  in  constant  fear  of 
his  cruelty  and  of  dangers  from  their  fellow  country¬ 
men.  Murders  and  robberies  were  of  frequent  occur¬ 
rence,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  on  the  execution  grounds, 
close  to  the  missionaries'  home,  robbers  were  being  put 
to  death  every  little  while. 

It  was  indeed  a  land  of  peril,  but  it  was  also  a  land  of 
need  of  the  gospel,  as  the  missionaries  realized ;  so  in 
spite  of  their  own  danger,  they  began  their  Christian 
labors  for  the  Burmese.  Through  illness,  privation, 
and  constant  danger  of  expulsion  or  death  at  the  hands 
of  the  despot,  the  Judsons  patiently  and  courageously 
preached  and  taught  the  gospel.  Gradually  they  won 
a  few  converts,  and  slowly  their  own  condition  was  im¬ 
proving,  when  suddenly  startling  and  dismaying  news 
was  brought  to  them :  England  had  opened  war  on 
Burma ! 

COURAGE  IN  PRISON  AND  OUT 

As  was  to  be  expected,  the  tyrant  vented  his  rage  on 
the  only  foreigners  within  his  reach.  Though  Judson 
was  an  American,  while  the  tyrant  was  at  war  with 


144  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

England,  the  latter  seized  the  American  and  threw  him 
into  prison,  together  with  another  missionary  and  some 
English  merchants.  Mrs.  Judson  was  not  harmed,  but 
her  anguish  over  her  husband’s  probable  fate  was  in¬ 
tense.  She  knew  that  he  was  in  “the  death  prison,” 
bound  with  three  pairs  of  iron  fetters,  and  chained  to  a 
long  pole. 

For  weeks  and  months  Mrs.  Judson  labored  with  all 
her  power  and  with  all  her  courage  and  tact  to  help  her 
husband.  By  her  intercession,  his  life  was  spared,  but 
he  was  shut  up  during  the  summer’s  greatest  heat  with 
a  hundred  Burmese  robbers  in  a  small  room  that  had 
no  window. 

Later,  by  means  of  more  entreaties,  Mrs.  Judson  con¬ 
trived  to  have  her  husband  placed  in  a  better  prison. 
More  than  this,  she  kept  up  a  secret  correspondence 
with  him  by  writing  messages  on  flat  cakes  concealed 
in  bowls  of  rice  that  she  sent  to  him  as  food. 

PRESERVING  A  PRECIOUS  BOOK 

During  his  continuing  imprisonment  Judson  let  his 
wife  know  that  he  was  afraid  that  the  despot  would 
seize  and  destroy  the  missionary’s  translation  of  the 
Bible.  He  suggested,  therefore,  that  she  put  this  into  a 
pillow  and  send  the  pillow  to  him.  This  she  did,  and 
on  this  pillow,  which  was  covered  with  native  matting, 
the  suffering  missionary  laid  his  head  nightly  in  peace 
and  contentment.  He  had  great  joy  in  realizing  that  as 
he  slept  his  head  was  pillowed  on  the  precious  Word  of 
God, 


AMERICA’S  FIRST  FOREIGN  MISSIONARY  145 


After  some  months,  unfortunately,  Judson  was  trans¬ 
ferred  to  another  prison,  and  as  he  limped  painfully 
toward  it,  on  bleeding  feet,  he  thought  with  sorrow  of 
the  translation  of  the  Bible  that  he  had  been  compelled 
to  leave  behind.  But  God  was  caring  for  his  Word. 
The  jailer,  finding  the  discarded  pillow,  kept  the  mat 
cover  for  himself  and  threw  the  pillow  itself  away.  One 
of  Judson' s  converts,  always  on  the  alert,  discovered  the 
valuable  pillow,  and  took  it  to  a  place  of  safety.  Long 
afterward  its  priceless  contents  were  brought  to  light, 
and  by  their  aid  the  people  of  Burma  received  the  Bible 
in  their  own  language. 

One  day,  two  years  after  he  had  first  been  imprisoned, 
a  stirring  message  came  from  the  despot  to  Judson  in 
his  prison.  The  victorious  English  were  approaching, 
and  Judson,  as  a  man  skilled  in  the  languages  of  Burma 
and  England  alike,  was  to  go  to  the  victors  to  plead 
for  peace.  The  American  missionary  went,  and  he 
discharged  his  task  so  well  that  one  of  the  conditions 
of  peace  laid  down  by  the  English  conqueror  was  the 
immediate  release  of  Judson.  Thus  triumphantly  did 
God  bring  his  faithful  missionary  out  of  his  two  years’ 
undeserved  captivity. 

IMMORTAL  FRUITS  OF  FAITHFUL  LABORS 

Later  in  his  life  Judson  worked  among  the  Karens,  a 
race  of  people  who  were  treated  as  slaves  by  the  Bur¬ 
mese,  though  in  many  ways  they  were  greatly  their  mas¬ 
ters,  superiors.  Gratifying  success  greeted  him 
from  the  first.  Soon  he  had  two  hundred  and  forty- 


146  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


eight  Christian  converts,  and  not  long  afterwards  one 
of  his  fellow  missionaries  said  of  the  Karens’  land,  “I 
eat  the  rice  and  fruits  cultivated  by  Christian  hands, 
look  on  the  fields  of  Christians,  and  see  no  homes  but 
those  of  Christian  families.” 

Mightily  did  God  bless  the  labors  of  Judson  for  both 
Burmese  and  Karens.  Once  in  his  early  years  in  Asia, 
Judson  had  said  that  he  would  be  quite  content  if  while 
he  lived  he  could  convert  one  hundred  Burmans  and 
translate  the  Bible  into  their  language.  But  before  he 
died,  he  did  far  more  than  this.  He  saw  the  Bible  trans¬ 
lated,  much  work  done  on  a  huge  Burmese  dictionary, 
sixty-three  Christian  churches  established,  and  more 
than  seven  thousand  Burmese  and  Karens  living  a 
Christian  life.  Indeed,  Judson  laid  the  foundation  of 
Christianity  in  Burma  so  firmly  that  they  have  never 
been  shaken  to  this  day. 

Suggestion:  Compare  the  delivery  of  Judson  from  prison 
with  that  of  Joseph  in  Egypt;  each  was  needed  by  the  ruler  of 
the  land,  and  each  won  honors  because  he  was  prepared  to 
serve.  Joseph  later  saved  the  Egyptians  from  starvation,  and 
Judson  saved  the  Burmese  from  spiritual  starvation.  Note 
similarities  between  the  boyhood  of  Judson,  Jonathan 
Edwards,  and  Timothy  Dwight. 

Books  Suggested 

Judson,  E.,  “Life  of  Adoniram  Judson.” 

Walsh,  pages  63-94. 

Hubbard,  “Ann  of  Ava.” 


A  PIONEER  OF  AFRICAN  CIVILIZATION  147 


LESSON  XX 

A  PIONEER  OF  AFRICAN  CIVILIZATION 
Read:  Acts  8:  26-39. 

Memory  Verse:  “They  that  dwelt  in  the  land  of  the  shadow 
of  death,  upon  them  hath  the  light  shined.” — Isa.  9:  2. 


ATTACKED  BY  A  MADDENED  LION 

On  a  certain  memorable  day  a  young  missionary  in 
Africa  left  his  home  to  hunt  lions  that  had  been  attack¬ 
ing  the  village  of  some  native  friends  of  his.  Suddenly 
the  man  caught  sight  of  a  lion  on  a  small  hill  only  a 
hundred  feet  or  so  from  him,  and  he  hastily  fired. 
While  he  was  quickly  reloading,  he  heard  a  shout  and, 
half  turning  round,  saw  a  lion  just  in  the  act  of  leaping 
upon  him. 

The  maddened  beast  seized  him  by  the  shoulder  and 
shook  him  as  a  dog  would  shake  a  rat,  biting  into  his 
arm  and  shoulder  and  crunching  the  bone  into  splinters. 
Certain  death  seemed  to  stare  the  missionary  in  the  face. 

Yet  his  life  was  spared.  One  of  his  African  converts, 
Mebalwe,  attracted  the  attention  of  the  animal,  which 
dropped  the  missionary  from  its  clutches,  and  turned 
to  face  the  new  danger.  Terribly  mangled,  the  white 
man  later  recovered  from  the  eleven  teeth  wounds  in 
his  arm,  but  the  splintered  bone  never  recovered.  For 
thirty  years  afterwards,  all  his  labors  and  adventures 
were  carried  on  while  he  was  suffering  from  an  arm  so 
crippled  that  to  raise  a  gun  to  his  shoulder  caused  ex¬ 
treme  agony. 


148  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


Does  it  not  seem  strange  that  this  man  should  con¬ 
tinue  to  live  in  a  land  where  dangers  like  this  were 
likely  to  occur  at  almost  any  time?  He  could  have 
gone  home  to  Scotland,  and  there  practiced  successfully 
and  honorably  as  a  physician,  yet  he  stayed  on  amid 
peril  and  privation.  Why  did  he  not  go  home?  For 
numerous  reasons,  some  of  which  are  suggested  by 
the  following  facts  that  we  know  about  him. 

A  BOY  OF  BOLDNESS,  HONOR  AND  DETERMINATION 

As  a  boy  David  Livingstone  was  brave  and  ad¬ 
venturous.  It  is  related  of  him  that  he  once  climbed 
far  up  on  the  ruins  of  Bothwell  Castle,  in  order  to 
carve  his  name  higher  than  any  other  boy  dared  to 
carve  his.  He  did  not  fear  danger,  so  the  perils  of  life 
in  Africa  did  not  alarm  him. 

Livingstone  was  born  in  a  Scottish  family  that  had 
a  tradition,  handed  down  from  father  to  son  for  gener¬ 
ations.  This  tradition  said  that  in  all  the  family  history 
there  was  no  record  of  a  dishonest  man.  David  lived 
up  to  the  family  standard  of  honor.  He  promised  God 
to  serve  him  in  Africa  as  a  missionary,  and  not  all  of 
Africa's  trials  could  force  him  to  break  his  word.  Once 
he  wrote  home,  concerning  a  perilous  adventure  that  he 
felt  must  be  undertaken,  “So  powerfully  convinced 
am  I  that  it  is  the  will  of  God  that  I  should  go,  I  will  go 
no  matter  who  opposes !” 

One  of  the  well-known  stories  about  Livingstone 
tells  how  when  he  was  a  boy  working  in  a  factory  he 
was  completely  determined  to  get  an  education,  even 


A  PIONEER  OF  AFRICAN  CIVILIZATION  149 


though  he  had  to  work  for  a  living  at  the  same  time. 
So  he  used  to  put  a  book  on  a  part  of  the  spinning 
jenny  at  which  he  was  toiling,  and  as  he  worked  he 
read  and  studied.  Late  in  the  evening,  after  working 
fourteen  hours  during  the  day,  he  went  off  to  a  night 
school,  and  then  studied  at  home  until  his  mother  put 
out  the  candle.  In  such  ways  he  managed  to  get  his 
education. 

Determination  like  this,  a  sense  of  honor  like  this, 
and  a  courage  like  this,  helped  make  David  Living¬ 
stone  the  valiant  missionary  that  he  was.  No  lion  or 
elephant  or  hippopotamus,  nor  even  all  the  pestilence 
that  walked  in  the  darkness  of  Africa,  could  keep 
Livingstone  from  doing  his  duty  to  Africa  and  to  God. 

ADVENTURING  IN  AFRICA  FOR  CHRIST 

Whoever  wants  to  read  a  book  of  the  most  thrilling 
adventure  will  find  what  he  seeks  in  any  well-written 
life  of  David  Livingstone.  The  life  of  this  brave  physi¬ 
cian,  the  pioneer  of  African  civilization,  is  crammed 
full  of  excitement,  achievement  and  inspiration.  Let 
us  think,  as  a  typical  chapter  from  this  thrilling  life, 
of  his  momentous  journey  across  the  Dark  Continent. 
This  was  in  the  days  when  no  one  knew  how  to  get 
from  the  interior  of  the  continent  to  the  coast;  indeed, 
Livingstone  was  the  first  white  man  who  is  known  to 
have  made  that  perilous  journey. 

Let  us  see  why  he  undertook  that  great  adventure. 
From  1840,  the  year  in  which  Livingstone  began  his 
work  in  Africa  as  a  representative  of  the  London  Mis- 


150  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

% 

sionary  Society,  he  was  saddened  by  the  awful  slave 
trade  in  the  Dark  Continent.  He  believed  that  if  Africa 
could  be  opened  to  lawful  trade  with  the  outer  world, 
the  traffic  in  slaves  would  gradually  disappear.  For  the 
sake  of  Africa’s  own  people,  therefore,  he  determined 
to  make  a  clear  path  from  the  interior  to  the  coast,  and 
so  enable  the  natives  to  go  on  trading  expeditions  to 
the  sea,  and  to  make  it  possible  for  white  men  to  go  on 
similar  trips  to  the  interior. 

It  was  a  noble  purpose,  and  it  was  nobly  fulfilled,  but 
a  terrible  experience  of  endurance  came  to  Livingstone 
in  the  carrying  out  of  it.  He  realized  that  he  must 
march  from  Linyante,  where  he  began  his  famous 
journey,  to  the  Atlantic  Ocean,  a  distance  of  fifteen 
hundred  miles  through  unknown  territory.  Hostile 
tribes,  malarial  swamps,  and  pathless  forests  lay  ahead 
of  him.  Through  these  he  must  lead  his  twenty-seven 
African  “boys,”  or  servants,  keep  them  supplied  with 
food  and  drink,  and  protect  them  from  attacks  by 
savages.  Floods,  fevers,  wild  beasts,  and  the  deadly 
tsetse  fly  would  be  encountered. 

THROUGH  THE  HEART  OF  THE  DARK  CONTINENT 

Boldly  the  expedition  set  out,  on  November  11,  1853. 
It  began  in  misfortune.  Livingstone  was  suffering 
from  fever  and  throat  trouble,  and  most  of  his  invaluable 
medicines  had  just  been  stolen.  Yet  the  start  was  made. 
So  rapidly  did  the  expedition  travel  that  to  the  amaze¬ 
ment  of  ordinary  travelers,  including  the  traders  among 
the  Africans,  who  were  content  if  they  made  seventy 


A  PIONEER  OF  AFRICAN  CIVILIZATION  151 


miles  in  a  month,  Livingstone  covered  about  two  hun¬ 
dred  miles  each  month.  Six  months  and  more  he 
traveled,  always  surmounting  great  obstacles  and  con¬ 
quering  unexpected  difficulties. 

Once  for  two  whole  weeks  the  sun  did  not  shine. 
Livingstone's  tent,  wet  by  the  excessive  and  constant 
rains,  began  to  rot.  The  all-important  guns  grew  rusty, 
and  the  travelers'  clothing  was  covered  with  mold. 
Part  of  the  way  lay  through  forests  so  dense  that  paths 
had  to  be  cut  with  axes.  The  river  was  crowded  with 
hippopotamuses  and  alligators,  yet  the  river  must  be 
crossed.  Once  Livingstone  was  flung  from  his  riding 
ox  in  midstream,  and  was  saved  only  by  his  unusual 
skill  as  a  swimmer. 

Supplies  ran  low,  and  some  of  the  food  was  stolen 
by  marauding  savages.  Once  two  guides  turned 
traitor,  and  decamped  with  a  large  part  of  the  mis¬ 
sionary's  store  of  beads,  used  for  buying  supplies  from 
the  tribes  whom  the  explorer  encountered  on  the  way. 
War  with  a  savage  tribe  on  one  occasion  was  avoided 
only  by  Livingstone’s  telling  the  hostile  chief  that  if 
there  was  to  be  bloodshed,  the  chief  himself  must  begin 
it,  and  that  the  blame  would  rest  on  him,  not  on  the 
white  man. 

Disease  fastened  itself  on  the  body  of  the  intrepid 
explorer.  Twenty-seven  times  fever  attacked  him,  re¬ 
duced  him  to  a  skeleton,  and  brought  on  a  tropical 
disorder  that  made  him  so  weak  he  could  sit  on  his  ox 
only  ten  minutes  at  a  time. 

Nevertheless,  Livingstone  finished  his  course.  On 


152  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


May  31,  1854,  the  haggard,  weary  traveler  entered  the 
Atlantic  coast  city  of  Loanda,  with  each  of  his  twenty- 
seven  “boys' ’  safely  behind  him.  He  had  opened  the 
way  from  the  heart  of  the  Dark  Continent  to  the  door 
of  civilization,  and  on  all  the  journey  he  had  kept  the 
peace  and  preached  the  gospel  of  peace. 

Never  had  the  world  seen  anything  like  this  mighty 
triumph  of  the  Christian  missionary.  Livingstone  had 
struck  a  death  blow  to  the  slave  trade.  Yet  even  now 
he  would  not  rest.  Almost  at  once  he  turned  away 
from  the  ocean,  and  from  the  opportunity  to  go  home, 
in  order  to  retrace  his  steps. 

For  one  thing,  Livingstone  had  promised  to  lead  his 
“boys”  safely  back  to  their  own  homes,  and  he  in¬ 
tended  to  keep  his  word.  So  back  he  went,  all  the  long 
weary  way.  Not  only  this,  but  he  kept  on  going,  and 
did  not  stop  until  he  had  reached  the  eastern  coast  of 
Africa  on  the  Indian  Ocean.  He  did  not  halt  until  he 
had  made  for  all  the  world  a  route  across  the  continent 
from  west  to  east. 

FROM  HONORS  IN  EUROPE  TO  HONOR  IN  AFRICA 

Then,  and  not  until  then,  Livingstone  consented  to 
go  home.  For  two  years  he  was  in  Great  Britain,  where 
he  was  honored  by  governments,  churches,  and  people 
as  few  men  ever  were  honored  in  any  age  of  the  world's 
history.  Urged  to  remain,  he  refused,  preferring  the 
life  of  a  lonely  missionary  and  traveler  in  Africa  to  that 
of  a  man  of  fame  in  Europe.  Once  more  honor  itself 
called  him  back.  He  had  told  “his  people,”  his  people 


A  PIONEER  OF  AFRICAN  CIVILIZATION  153 


in  Africa,  that  only  death  could  keep  him  from  return¬ 
ing  to  them,  and  he  kept  his  word.  Family,  friends, 
and  civilization  he  put  behind  him  once  again,  that  he 
might  be  true  to  Africa  and  to  God. 

Of  the  remainder  of  the  life  of  Livingstone  little  can 
be  told  here.  Fourteen  more  years  he  spent  in  Africa 
as  explorer  and  missionary,  a  period  of  time  broken  by 
only  one  short  visit  home,  and  marked  otherwise  by  re¬ 
peated  exhausting  and  courageous  expeditions  through 
the  heart  of  Africa  for  preaching  the  gospel,  opening 
up  the  country  to  civilization,  and  combating  the  slave 
traffic.  He  won  great  triumphs,  and  endured  tre¬ 
mendous  sufferings  and  sorrows. 

At  length  Livingstone’s  body  broke  down  com¬ 
pletely  under  its  incredible  load  of  privation.  By  De¬ 
cember  of  1872  he  was  absolutely  worn  out,  and 
certainly  a  man  of  less  determination  would  have  died 
before  the  beginning  of  1873.  Yet  Livingstone  pushed 
on.  His  sufferings  were  almost  unbelievable.  All  this 
time  he  was  bleeding  to  death,  and  was  in  intense  pain, 
but  he  compelled  himself  to  go  on. 

On  April  21  the  explorer  forced  his  boys  to  put  him 
on  his  donkey’s  back,  but  he  was  so  weak  that  at  once 
he  fell  to  the  ground.  After  this  his  faithful  boys  car¬ 
ried  him  in  a  hammock  slung  from  a  pole.  Still  on  he 
went,  but  he  was  growing  constantly  weaker.  At  last 
he  could  go  not  a  mile  farther,  and  on  April  30  he  lay 
down  to  die.  Next  morning  the  boys,  when  they 
entered  his  hut,  found  the  pioneer  of  African  civiliza¬ 
tion  dead,  but  kneeling  beside  his  bed  in  his  last  prayer 


154  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


to  God.  A  hero  of  the  Church  had  gone  home  to  his 
eternal  reward. 

TO  A  GRAVE  IN  WESTMINSTER  ABBEY 

With  a  love  for  their  white  friend  such  as  the  world 
has  seldom  seen,  the  boys  of  Livingstone  embalmed 
his  worn  body,  and  with  tremendous  difficulty  and  in¬ 
tense  suffering  carried  it  safely  to  the  sea  coast  whence 
it  was  conveyed  by  ship  to  England. 

In  England  a  special  train  was  in  waiting  at  South¬ 
ampton,  and  in  this  special  railway  conveyance  the  re¬ 
mains  of  David  Livingstone  were  carried  to  London. 
There  they  were  honored  as  the  body  of  no  other  mis¬ 
sionary  ever  had  been  honored ;  they  were  laid  in  West¬ 
minster  Abbey  itself,  where  England  lays  the  bodies  of 
its  great  and  hero  dead.  Over  the  grave  so  signally 
honored  there  stands  a  plain  slab,  which  bears  the 
following  inscription,  a  tribute  to  a  mighty  man  of  God  : 

Brought  by  Faithful  Hands 
Over  Land  and  Sea, 

Here  Rests 

DAVID  LIVINGSTONE 
Missionary 
Traveller 
Philanthropist 
Born  March  19th,  1813 
At  Blantyre,  Lanarkshire 
Died  May  1,  1873 
At  Chitambo’s  village,  Ulala. 

For  30  years  his  life  was  spent 
in  an  unwearied  effort 
To  evangelize  the  native  races 


UGANDA’S  MISSIONARY  MECHANIC 


155 


To  explore  the  undiscovered  secrets 
To  abolish  the  desolating  slave  trade 
OF  CENTRAL  AFRICA 
where  with  his  last  words  he  wrote 
“All  I  can  add  in  my  solitude  is 
May  Heaven’s  rich  blessing  come  down 
On  every  one,  American,  English  or  Turk, 
who  will  help  to  heal 
This  open  sore  of  the  world.” 

Suggestion:  A  striking  proof  of  the  power  of  Christianity 
to  transform  the  lives  of  black  men  of  Africa  is  found  in  the 
marvelous  story  of  “the  nine-months-long  funeral”  of  Living¬ 
stone,  the  hazardous  journey  of  his  “boys”  to  carry  his  body 
to  his  English  friends.  Can  you  not  tell  it  to  the  school 
to-day?  See,  for  example,  Horne  (below),  pages  218-226. 

Books  Suggested 

Horne,  “David  Livingstone,”  Walsh,  pages  281-314. 

Kumm,  “African  Missionary  Heroes  and  Heroines,”  pages 
174-192. 

Biographies  of  Livingstone  are  numerous. 


LESSON  XXI 

UGANDA’S  MISSIONARY  MECHANIC 

Read:  Acts  18:  1-4. 

Memory  Verse:  “He  that  loseth  his  life  for  my  sake  shall 
find  it.” — Matt.  10:39.  % 

A  SUCCESSOR  TO  LIVINGSTONE  IN  CENTRAL  AFRICA 

“This  day  of  last  year  Livingstone  died — a  Scotch¬ 
man  and  a  Christian,  loving  God  and  his  neighbor  in 
the  heart  of  Africa.  Go  thou  and  do  likewise.”  This 


156  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

is  an  entry  dated  May  1,  1874,  in  the  diary  of  Alexan¬ 
der  M.  Mackay,  also  “a  Scotchman  and  a  Christian.” 
His  advice,  “Go  thou  and  do  likewise,”  was  meant  for 
himself,  and  he  took  it.  Within  less  than  two  years  he, 
too,  was  in  the  heart  of  Africa  as  a  missionary,  and  he 
did  not  leave  it  until  his  death  fourteen  years  later. 

Livingstone  opened  Africa  to  civilization,  and  Mac¬ 
kay  took  civilization  to  it.  What  he  tried  to  do  was 
to  train  Africans  in  such  mighty  civilizing  works  as 
building  roads  and  railways,  opening  mines,  and  manu¬ 
facturing  machinery,  and  all  the  time  to  preach  the 
gospel  of  peace  and  freedom,  and  so  to  complete  the 
task  that  Livingstone  had  begun — that  is,  to  use  Chris¬ 
tianity  and  civilization  to  drive  slavery  from  the  Dark 
Continent.  Nobly  and  effectively  did  Mackay  labor 
to  this  end  through  all  his  eventful  career  in  Africa. 

PREPARED  BY  GOD  FOR  AFRICA 

See  how  God  made  Mackay  ready  for  his  civilizing 
work  in  Africa.  As  a  very  small  boy,  Mackay  was  a 
rapid  and  deep  reader  of  the  Bible,  and  of  geography, 
history,  and  mathematics,  all  of  which  helped  him 
greatly  as  a  man  in  Africa.  At  the  same  time  he  liked 
to  work  with  his  hands.  When  he  was  three  years  old, 
he  imitated  stone  masons  whom  he  had  seen  at  work, 
and  at  nine  years  of  age  he  bought  a  printing  press. 
From  eleven  to  thirteen  he  worked  on  a  farm  and 
tinkered  with  machinery. 

Thus,  even  as  a  boy  Mackay  combined  two  forces 
that  made  him  a  success  later  in  life — mental  education 


UGANDA’S  MISSIONARY  MECHANIC 


157 


and  mechanical  training.  When  he  was  still  a  little 
fellow,  he  went  one  day,  as  usual,  to  play  where  some 
masons  were  at  work.  “Well,  laddie,”  one  of  them 
asked  him,  “going  to  give  us  a  sermon  to-day?”  And 
the  boy  replied:  “Give  me  a  trowel;  I  can  preach  and 
build  at  the  same  time.”  Just  this  he  did  in  Africa. 

As  a  young  man,  early  interested  in  foreign  missions 
and  in  Africa,  Mackay  taught  school  three  hours  a  day 
to  pay  his  expenses  at  college,  where  he  won  high 
honors  in  his  study  of  the  Bible,  and  in  geography  and 
drawing.  After  this  he  spent  four  years  in  studying 
engineering  and  surveying,  becoming  so  skilled  that 
later  he  had  a  well-paying  position  in  Germany  as  a 
chief  instructor  in  engineering.  When  at  length  he  was 
appointed  by  the  Church  Missionary  Society,  of  the 
Church  of  England,  as  a  missionary  to  Uganda  in 
Africa,  he  gave  considerable  time  to  intensive  study  of 
astronomy,  coal-mining,  and  even  medicine. 

MECHANIC  AND  MISSIONARY 

Thus  prepared  for  his  life  work,  in  1876  (100  years 
after  the  signing  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in 
the  United  States,  and  three  years  after  the  death  of 
Livingstone  in  Africa)  Mackay  sailed  for  the  Dark 
Continent.  His  destination  was  Uganda,  on  the 
northern  shores  of  the  huge  Lake  Victoria,  but  it  was 
not  until  after  many  a  long  day  that  he  reached  it.  Two 
of  his  associates  proceeded  to  the  northwest,  taking  with 
them  a  vessel,  the  Daisy,  for  use  in  crossing  the  lake, 
while  Mackay  himself  stayed  behind,  partly  in  order  to 


158  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


build  a  long  road  to  the  lake  through  the  untraveled 
interior. 

Those  first  months  were  toilsome  in  the  extreme. 
Mackay  explored  two  rivers,  led  his  caravan  into  the 
interior,  built  a  bridge,  laid  his  road,  repaired  his  own 
tools,  and  on  Sundays  preached  the  gospel.  He  waded 
swamps,  crawled  through  the  jungle  on  trails  made  by 
hippopotamuses  and  rhinoceroses  and  crossed  salt  and 
waterless  deserts. 

Often  he  was  thirsty,  often  starving,  and  always  im¬ 
periled  by  leopards,  lions,  elephants,  and  deadly  scor¬ 
pions.  One  by  one  his  companions  left  him,  usually 
on  account  of  ill  health,  and  two  of  them  were  mur¬ 
dered,  yet  ever  he  toiled  laboriously  and  bravely  on¬ 
ward  toward  the  great  lake. 

ON  THE  BOAT  THAT  ANTS  HAD  EATEN 

Two  years  had  passed  before  the  road  was  finished 
and  the  missionary  reached  the  longed-for  lake,  but 
even  then  his  difficulties  were  not  over.  The  Daisy  left 
on  the  shores  of  Victoria  by  his  murdered  associates,  had 
been  attacked  and  riddled  by  huge,  voracious  white 
ants,  trampled  by  hippopotamuses,  and  dried  into  bits 
by  the  scorching  African  sun,  and  it  was  an  almost 
complete  wreck.  Weeks  went  by  while  with  great  toil 
the  missionary  patched  and  remade  the  vessel,  and  got 
it  ready  for  the  voyage  across  the  broad  lake,  next  in 
size  to  our  own  Lake  Superior,  and  as  large  as  all 
Scotland,  Mackay’s  native  land. 

At  length  all  was  ready.  Confidently  Mackay  and  his 


UGANDA’S  MISSIONARY  MECHANIC 


159 


party  set  out  across  the  waters  to  his  future  home. 
But  one  of  the  storms  for  which  Victoria  Lake  is  ill- 
famed,  seized  upon  the  Daisy,  and  within  a  week  from 
the  sailing  it  had  made  of  the  vessel  an  utter 
wreck.  Two  months  passed  while  it  was  being  re¬ 
paired,  two  months  of  tireless  exertion.  But  the  time 
came  to  an  end  at  last,  a  second  embarkation  was  made, 
and  this  time  the  voyagers  made  the  passage  of  the  lake 
in  triumph.  In  November  of  1878,  two  and  a  half 
years  after  leaving  England,  Mackay  landed  on  the 
shores  of  Uganda. 

"white  men  know  everything" 

Strange  was  the  missionary  life  that  the  bold  Mackay 
then  entered  upon.  Either  to  win  the  friendship  of  the 
king  and  his  people,  or  else  to  help  them  live  useful, 
happy,  and  godly  lives,  the  missionary  performed  a 
great  many  feats  that  astonished  all  who  saw  them.  He 
made  a  sort  of  cart  so  constructed  that  it  enabled  him 
with  one  hand  to  move  a  huge  log  that  two  hundred 
men  had  not  been  able  to  stir  from  its  place.  He  dug 
a  well  equipped  with  a  pump  of  his  own  making,  that 
gave  the  people  pure  water.  For  the  king  he  erected  a 
monster  flagstaff,  and  constructed  a  royal  coffin  as  large 
as  a  house  and  requiring  many  workmen  and  a  month 
of  Mackay’s  time  in  the  making. 

Greatly  impressed  was  the  king  by  a  statement  that 
Mackay  made  to  him  one  day,  when  they  were  discuss¬ 
ing  the  power  of  civilized  man  over  the  forces  of 
nature.  "My  forefathers,"  said  the  missionary,  "made 


160  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  wind  their  slave;  then  they  put  water  in  chains; 
next  they  enslaved  steam ;  and  now  the  terrible  light¬ 
ning  is  the  white  man’s  slave.” 

Always  the  missionary  was  exhibiting  the  vast  ex¬ 
tent  of  the  knowledge  of  white  men,  men  whose  religion 
was  quite  as  good  as  their  skill.  Finally  the  king  gave 
in.  “Surely  there  is  nothing  left  for  white  men  to 
learn,”  he  cried.  “They  know  everything.” 

SUCCESSES,  DISCOURAGEMENTS,  AND  FINAL  TRIUMPH 

We  can  realize  how  powerful  were  Mackay’s  deeds 
in  the  eyes  of  the  black  men,  who  looked  on  them  as 
miracles,  when  we  discover  how  rapidly  the  mission¬ 
ary’s  Christian  influence  grew.  The  summer  after 
Mackay  reached  Uganda  saw  the  king  ordering  his 
chiefs  and  soldiers  to  learn  to  read.  Three  years  later 
five  converts  were  baptized.  Within  another  year 
nearly  ninety  had  been  baptized  as  Christians, 

All  was  not  smooth  sailing,  however,  either  for  the 
missionary  or  for  his  converts.  Arab  traders  and  Ro¬ 
man  Catholic  missionaries  told  the  king  lies  about 
Mackay.  Persecution  broke  out.  In  1885  three  con¬ 
verts  were  burned  to  death.  The  noble  Bishop  Han- 
nington,  one  of  Mackay’s  associates,  was  murdered  that 
year,  and  Mackay’s  own  life  was  spared  at  that  time 
only  because  of  the  “miracles”  that  he  could  perform  as 
a  mechanical  missionary.  A  little  later  fifty  converts 
were  killed,  and  all  the  others  soon  fled,  leaving  Mackay 
alone  in  Uganda. 

Finally,  in  1887,  Mackay  himself  was  expelled  from 


UGANDA’S  MISSIONARY  MECHANIC 


161 


the  country,  having  to  carry  on  his  work  after  that  at 
a  distance.  He  died  in  1890  as  a  result  of  an  attack  of 
the  white  man’s  greatest  foe  in  Africa,  the  fever  that 
countless  times  had  prostrated  the  famous  Livingstone. 

Mackay  died,  but  his  work  went  on.  The  founda¬ 
tion  of  Christian  civilization  that  he,  with  the  coopera¬ 
tion  of  other  missionaries,  had  laid  endures  to  this  day. 
We  can  see  what  a  change  he  and  they  wrought  in 
Uganda  by  reading  two  reports  of  the  country’s  con¬ 
dition,  one  written  by  the  noted  explorer,  Stanley,  the 
other  by  one  of  Mackay’ s  successors,  Pilkington,  of 
Uganda. 

In  1876,  the  year  of  Mackay’s  sailing  for  Africa, 
Stanley  described  Uganda  as  a  land  of  “thievish 
knaves,”  where  “violence  is  rife,  human  life  cheap, 
tortures  frequent,”  and  where  “bloody  superstitions 
abound.” 

But  only  twenty  years  later  Pilkington  wrote,  “A 
hundred  thousand  evangelized,  half  [of  them]  able  to 
read  for  themselves ;  two  hundred  buildings  for  wor¬ 
ship;  two  hundred  native  evangelists  and  teachers  sup¬ 
ported  by  the  native  church ;  ten  thousand  copies  of  the 
New  Testament  in  circulation;  six  thousand  souls 
eagerly  seeking  daily  instruction ;  the  power  of  God 
shown  by  changed  lives.” 

“mackay,  you  are  a  man  !” 

Mackay  of  Uganda  was  one  of  the  remarkable  men 
of  all  time.  He  was  brave  to  the  point  of  not  knowing 
danger  when  it  was  all  around  him.  He  was  so  de- 


162  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


termined  that  once  the  king  of  Uganda,  seeing  him 
push  on  to  victory  over  overwhelming  obstacles,  sud¬ 
denly  exclaimed,  “Mackay,  you  are  a  man!”  He  was 
so  winning  in  his  ways,  and  so  friendly  as  a  Christian 
man,  that  two  murderers  of  white  men,  two  kings,  and 
a  multitude  of  other  black  men  and  black  children  freely 
gave  him  their  friendship.  He  was  a  man  of  prayer. 
In  danger,  difficulty,  and  discouragement,  he  trusted  in 
God,  who  never  deserts  those  who  trust  in  him,  and 
who  always  gives  strength  and  power. 

At  one  time  Mackay  was  urged  to  return  to  England 
for  needed  rest  and  restrengthening,  but  he  refused,  in 
great  surprise.  “What  is  this  you  write?”  he  de¬ 
manded.  “Come  home?  Surely,  now  is  not  the  time 
for  me  to  desert  my  post!" 

And  desert  his  post  Mackay  never  would.  He 
was  a  man  of  consecration,  a  man  who  stuck  to  his  work 
as  long  as  there  was  any  work  to  do,  or  any  strength 
with  which  to  do  it.  When  at  last  he  did  leave  Africa, 
it  was  because  his  strength  was  gone ;  and  even  then  it 
was  not  to  go  home  to  England,  but  to  go  home  to  God. 
For  he  had  finished  his  course;  he  had  kept  faith  with 
the  needy  souls  of  Uganda  to  the  very  end. 

Suggestion:  Point  out  these  facts: 

1.  Africa  is  the  continent  of  the  famous  early  Church 
fathers,  Cyril,  Cyprian,  Athanasius,  and  Augustine. 

2.  The  last  remnant  of  old  African  Christianity  of  any  note 
died  in  700,  when  Cahina,  Christian  queen  of  the  Berbers,  was 
executed  by  the  onsweeping  Mohammedan  power  because 
she  would  not  give  up  her  faith  in  Christ. 

3.  More  than  1,000  years  went  by  before  the  Christian 


UGANDA’S  MISSIONARY  MECHANIC 


163 


missions  of  the  modern  Church  began  to  rescue  Africa  from 
the  barbarism  into  which  Vandals  and  Mohammedans  had 
plunged  it,  and  from  the  paganism  that  Mohammedanism 
never  influenced  for  good. 

4.  A  “white  and  black”  map  of  Africa  of  to-day  shows  three 
white  spots,  where  the  people  are  predominantly  Christian — 
Abyssinia,  South  Africa,  where  British  influence  is  para¬ 
mount,  and  Uganda.  A  score  of  American  churches  and 
societies  have  missionaries  in  Africa,  and  so  have  about  fifty 
European  and  about  twenty  international  and  interdenomina¬ 
tional  societies,  besides  a  score  of  Roman  Catholic  organiza¬ 
tions.  Africa  is  girdled  with  Christian  mission  stations,  and 
they  go  also  in  a  direct  line  from  east  to  west  across  the  middle 
of  the  continent — the  route  that  Livingstone  opened  to 
civilization  and  to  Christianity. 

5.  Yet  between  the  Niger  and  the  Nile,  a  distance  of  1,500 
miles,  there  is  to-day  no  Christian  missionary  work  being 
done.  This  vast  territory,  lying  far  north  and  northwest  of 
Uganda,  is  considered  by  many  authorities  to  be  the  world’s 
most  strategic  and  most  needy  missionary  field  of  the  present 
time. 

Books  Suggested 

Harrison,  “A.  M.  Mackay,  Missionary  Hero  of  Uganda.” 

Fahs,  “Uganda’s  White  Man  of  Work.” 

Beach,  “Knights  of  the  Labarum,”  pages  89-109. 

Kumm,  “'African  Missionary  Heroes  and  Heroines,”  pages 
130-158. 


164  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


LESSON  XXII 

A  MISSIONARY  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY 

Read:  Prov.  1 :  1-8. 

Memory  Verse:  “The  fear  of  Jehovah  is  the  beginning  of 

knowledge.” — Prov.  1:7. 

A  STRANGE  OBJECT  AFLOAT  ON  THE  SEA 

Bobbing  up  and  down  on  the  waters  of  the  ocean, 
one  day,  a  small  book  attracted  the  attention  of  a 
Japanese  nobleman.  He  was  governor  of  the  district 
that  included  the  beautiful  city  of  Nagasaki,  in  the 
harbor  of  which  an  English  fleet  lay  at  anchor.  This 
was  in  1854,  the  year  after  the  historic  United  States 
naval  expedition  under  Commodore  Perry  had  pre¬ 
vailed  on  the  Japanese  Government  to  open  its  ports 
to  trade  with  other  nations ;  and  the  British  fleet  was 
in  harbor  to  make  easier  the  beginning  of  such  trade. 
No  doubt  the  little  book  that  floated  on  the  waves  had 
been  lost  overboard  by  one  of  the  English  sailors. 

Rescuing  the  book  from  the  sea,  Wakasa,  the  gover¬ 
nor,  examined  it  with  great  care.  It  was  different  from 
any  volume  he  ever  had  seen  before — different  in  bind¬ 
ing,  in  printing,  and  even  in  language ;  for  of  the  words 
in  the  small  book  Wakasa  could  read  not  one. 

His  curiosity  aroused,  he  determined  to  learn  what 
might  be  the  message  of  this  tiny  volume,  that  seemed 
to  have  come  to  him  direct  from  the  powerful  foreign 
nations  across  the  sea.  Yet  Japan  was  still  opposed  to 
adopting  things  foreign,  so  Wakasa  had  to  proceed 


A  MISSIONARY  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY  165 

cautiously,  if  he  would  avoid  losing  his  important  post 
as  governor. 

By  discreet  and  diligent  inquiry,  Wakasa  in  time 
learned  that  the  book  told  of  the  Creator  of  the  world, 
of  one  Jesus  who  taught  the  truth  concerning  the  Cre¬ 
ator,  and  also  much  of  morals  and  religion.  But  this 
little  information  only  deepened  the  governor’s  curiosity. 
Accordingly,  he  dispatched  one  of  his  men  to  an  island 
in  the  harbor,  to  visit  the  dozen  or  so  Dutch  merchants 
who  lived  there  and  ask  them  what  they  knew  about 
his  little  book  and  its  message.  When  the  man  re¬ 
turned,  he  brought  the  gratifying  word  that  there  was 
in  existence  a  translation  of  the  book  into  Chinese,  a 
language  that  all  educated  Japanese  could  read. 

So  eager  was  Wakasa  to  read  the  book  that  he 
next  sent  a  man  over  the  Yellow  Sea  to  China,  to  buy 
a  copy  of  this  translation.  In  due  time  the  messenger 
came  back  in  triumph ;  in  his  hand  he  bore  a  copy  of  the 
New  Testament  in  the  Chinese  language. 

At  once  Wakasa  began  to  read  the  New  Testament. 
The  more  he  read,  the  more  interested  he  became,  and 
also  the  more  puzzled  he  grew.  They  were  strange 
words  which  he  read,  and  strange  truths  which  he 
found  taught  in  the  book.  He  read  on,  and  as  he  read, 
he  began  to  long  for  some  one  who  understood  the 
Testament  to  come  and  explain  it  to  him. 

Wakasa  in  his  longing  for  a  teacher  of  the  New 
Testament  was  a  sort  of  representative  of  all  Japan, 
though  of  course  he  did  not  realize  it.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  all  Japan  was  waiting  for  some  one  to  come  from 


166  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  great  West  and  explain  the  Word  of  God.  God 
saw  this  need,  and  God  saw  the  longing  of  Wakasa 
himself.  Even  while  the  governor  read  on  in  interest 
and  bewilderment,  the  world's  Creator  was  preparing 
a  man  in  the  West  to  come  to  the  Japanese  nobleman's 
help. 

PREPARING  TO  CARRY  AID  TO  WAKASA 

Just  about  the  time  when  Wakasa  espied  the  Testa¬ 
ment  floating  on  the  sea,  a  young  man  lay  on  a  bed  in 
Helena,  Arkansas,  very  ill  with  fever.  This  young  man 
Guido  F.  Yerbeck,  promised  God  that  if  he  recovered 
from  his  severe  illness,  he  would  dedicate  himself  as  a 
foreign  missionary.  He  did  recover,  and  after  a 
time  he  made  his  promise  good. 

It  was  rather  natural  for  Verbeck  to  think  of  be¬ 
coming  a  missionary.  Back  in  his  homeland  of  Hol¬ 
land,  he  had  lived  in  a  missionary  atmosphere  while 
he  was  attending  a  Moravian  school  there.  Teacher 
after  teacher  left  the  school  in  order  to  become  a 
missionary  to  Labrador,  or  Greenland,  or  the  West 
Indies. 

Moreover,  Verbeck  could  easily  learn  to  speak  foreign 
languages,  so  an  obstacle  often  in  the  way  of  a  would-be 
foreign  missionary  did  not  trouble  him.  As  a  boy  he 
spoke  not  only  Dutch,  but  also  German,  French,  and 
English.  His  English  was  so  carefully  learned  that 
later,  when  he  lived  in  the  United  States,  he  spoke  it 
without  the  accent  that  usually  lets  us  know  when  a 
person  we  hear  talking  was  not  born  in  America.  One 
way  in  which  he  trained  his  tongue  to  sav,  “this,”  and 


A  MISSIONARY  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY  167 

“that,"  instead  of  the  easier  “dis,”  and  “dat,”  was  to 
repeat  over  and  over  such  sentences  as  this  :  “Theophilus 
Thistle  thrust  three  thousand  thistles  into  the  thick  of 
his  thumb." 

When  Verbeck  was  twenty-two  years  old,  he  came  to 
the  United  States,  where  some  of  his  relatives  were 
living.  Not  long  after  his  recovery  from  fever  in 
Arkansas,  he  entered  Auburn  Theological  Seminary,  in 
New  York,  as  a  student  for  the  ministry.  While  he  was 
there,  something  happened  in  Asia  that  eventually 
meant  the  granting  of  the  wish  of  Wakasa,  the 
Japanese  governor. 

A  Presbyterian  missionary  in  Shanghai,  China,  hav¬ 
ing  visited  Japan,  wrote  to  the  Dutch  Reformed 
Church  in  the  United  States,  requesting  it  to  send  to 
Japan  as  a  missionary  some  man  of  learning  who  would 
be  acceptable  to  the  Japanese.  Because  for  years  the 
Japanese  had  known  Dutch  merchants  such  as  those 
living  on  the  island  in  Nagasaki  harbor,  the  China 
missionary  suggested  that  the  new  missionary  to 
Japan  be  an  Americanized  Dutchman.  Quickly  the 
Dutch  Reformed  Church  Board  of  Missions  began 
looking  about  in  the  country’s  theological  seminaries 
for  a  learned  Hollander  who  had  lived  for  some  time 
in  the  United  States.  Very  shortly  it  learned  of  G.  F. 
Verbeck,  a  student  in  Auburn  Seminary.  Verbeck  was 
chosen. 

He  accepted  the  appointment,  and  in  May,  1859,  he 
sailed  for  Japan  by  way  of  China.  Six  months  later 
he  landed  in  Japan.  The  city  in  which  he  first  set  foot 


168  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


on  Japanese  soil  was  Nagasaki  itself,  and  here  he  made 
his  home  for  manv  years. 

WHEN  WAKASA  CAME  TO  VERBECK 

At  first  Wakasa  did  not  learn  of  the  arrival  of  the 
“teacher"  from  the  West  who  could  help  him  to  under¬ 
stand  the  New  Testament.  It  was  well  that  he  did 
not,  for  at  first  Verbeck  had  to  spend  his  time  in  learn¬ 
ing  the  difficult  Japanese  language.  But  not  a  great  while 
after  he  had  become  skilled  as  a  speaker  of  Japanese, 
Verbeck  was  told  one  day  that  a  member  of  a  Japanese 
family  of  nobility  had  come  to  see  him".  His  visitor 
was  not  Wakasa,  but  Wakasa’ s  younger  brother,  who 
had  been  sent  by  the  former  governor  to  study  the 
Bible  with  Verbeck’s  help,  and  to  carry  the  information 
that  he  gleaned  back  to  Wakasa  who  was  now  living 
some  distance  away. 

Back  and  forth  between  Nagasaki  and  the  home  of 
W akasa  went  a  messenger  of  the  nobleman,  this  envoy 
at  first  being  his  brother,  later  one  of  several  other 
ambassadors  whom  Wakasa  dispatched  to  the  city  of 
the  American  missionary. 

For  three  years  or  more  this  long-distance  instruc¬ 
tion  continued,  and  then  at  length  Verbeck  had  the 
greatly  anticipated  pleasure  of  welcoming  in  person  the 
earnest  seeker  of  the  truth.  Accompanied  by  numerous 
relatives  and  many  retainers,  in  great  state  Wakasa 
came  to  Nagasaki,  the  city  where  twelve  years  before  he 
had  found  the  Word  of  God  floating  on  the  sea. 

Extremely  interesting  to  all  who  heard  them,  were 


A  MISSIONARY  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY  169 


the  conversations  between  the  Japanese  nobleman  and 
the  missionary  from  the  West 

“Sir,"  said  Wakasa  to  Verbeck  one  day,  “I  cannot 
tell  you  my  feelings  when  for  the  first  time  I  read  the 
account  of  the  character  and  work  of  Jesus  Christ.  I 
was  filled  with  admiration,  overwhelmed  with  emotion, 
and  quite  taken  captive." 

With  ease  and  power  Wakasa  quoted  from  the  Bible 
which  he  studied  during  his  long  years  of  waiting. 
Then  he  requested  the  missionary  to  baptize  him  as  a 
Christian. 

THE  FIRST  OF  MANY  CONVERTS 

Verbeck  was  moved  with  admiration  of  the  Christian 
character  and  courage  of  Wakasa,  and  this  feeling  was 
only  increased  when  he  had  warned  the  nobleman  that 
baptism  would  put  the  new  Christian  in  peril  of  his 
very  life.  The  Japanese  replied  that  he  was  prepared 
to  face  any  sort  of  persecution  for  his  faith ;  he  was 
determined  to  be  baptized  as  a  Christian. 

On  the  following  Sunday,  therefore,  the  mis¬ 
sionary  gave  Christian  baptism  to  Wakasa  and  also  to 
his  younger  brother,  Ayabe,  who  had  been  his  first 
messenger  to  Verbeck,  and  Motono,  another  messenger 
of  Wakasa’s,  The  three  Japanese  Christians  then  par¬ 
took  of  Communion,  and  shortly  afterwards  went  home 
together  in  deep  happiness.  These  were  Verbeck’ s 
first  converts  to  Christianity  in  Japan. 

As  the  years  passed  by,  Wakasa  lived  a  compara¬ 
tively  peaceful  life  at  his  fine  home  at  Saga.  Many  of 
his  relatives  became  Christians,  and  nowadays  the 


170  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

records  of  the  Christian  Church  in  Japan  show  that 
children  and  grandchildren  of  the  great  man  have  be¬ 
come  Christians  to  the  fifth  generation,  and  of  course 
the  end  is  not  yet.  Wakasa’s  last  years  were  spent  in 
translating  the  Bible  from  Chinese  to  Japanese,  and 
when  he  died,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  he  died  praying  for 
the  triumph  of  Christianity  in  Japan. 

GIVING  CHRISTIAN  CIVILIZATION  TO  THE  JAPANESE 

Mighty  triumphs,  indeed,  came  to  Christianity  in 
Japan  during  Verbeck’s  long  career  there.  When  he 
died,  in  1898,  he  passed  away  with  a  realization  that 
the  foundations  of  the  religion  of  Jesus  Christ  had  been 
firmly  fixed  in  the  Japanese  empire.  He  had  seen 
Christians  rise  to  high  influence  in  business,  educa¬ 
tion,  and  government  in  the  empire ;  had  beheld  the  old 
anti-Christian  laws  entirely  removed ;  had  watched 
Japan  advance  from  a  minor  position  among  the  nations 
to  a  leading  place  in  the  world ;  and  always  he  had  felt 
in  his  own  life  the  esteem  of  the  Japanese  Government 
and  people  for  him. 

When  the  Japanese  Government,  early  in  Verbeck’s 
life  in  the  Orient,  made  him  principal  of  its  new  college 
at  Nagasaki,  it  started  him  in  his  illustrious  career  as  an 
educator  of  the  Japanese.  In  1869  it  called  him  from 
Nagasaki  to  the  new  capital,  Tokyo,  there  to  help  es¬ 
tablish  the  Imperial  University,  the  national  institution 
for  training  Japan’s  young  men  in  the  civilization  of 
the  West.  Two  years  later  the  university  had  thirteen 
teachers  and  a  thousand  eager  students. 


A  MISSIONARY  WITHOUT  A  COUNTRY  171 

For  several  years  Verbeck  was  the  salaried  advisor 
of  the  Japanese  Government,  as  an  unofficial  member 
of  the  imperial  cabinet,  and  in  this  exalted  position  he 
helped  to  organize  the  navy  and  army  of  Japan,  which 
during  the  past  forty  years  have  won  tremendous  vic¬ 
tories  for  their  nation. 

But  even  earlier  the  famous  missionary  had  initiated 
the  historic  embassy  to  the  West  that  resulted  in  mak¬ 
ing  Japan  safe  for  Christian  missionaries  and  converts. 
When  the  ambassadors  saw  in  the  United  States  the 
influence  of  Christianity,  they  realized  that  the  religion 
of  Christ  is  the  greatest  of  all  forces  in  real  civilization ; 
and  this  realization  led  to  a  safe  and  open  road  for 
Christian  missions  into  the  heart  of  the  empire. 

Verbeck’s  evangelistic  and  educational  labors  as  a 
missionary  worked  decisively  to  help  make  Christianity 
a  power  in  Japan,  as  it  long  had  been  in  America  and 
Europe.  How  much  of  the  honor  that  the  Japanese 
Government  paid  to  him  can  be  ascribed  to  its  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  his  preaching,  we  do  not  know,  yet  to  the  Chris¬ 
tian  Church  of  Japan,  of  America,  and  of  Holland, 
it  is  very  clear  that  he  labored  mightily  for  Christ  in 
Japan,  and  prevailed. 

HONORED  BY  AN  EMPIRE,  AND  BY  THE  WORLD 

Japan’s  honors  to  Verbeck  were  of  a  sort  and  of  a 
distinction  such  as  the  nation  never  before  had  known. 
In  1873  the  emperor  decorated  the  missionary  with  the 
insignia  of  the  Third  Class  of  the  Order  of  the  Rising 
Sun.  But  it  did  more  than  this ;  it  did  for  him  the 


172  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


unique  thing  of  saving  him  from  living  out  his  life  as 
a  missionary  without  a  country,  as  he  had  been  living 
since  1859. 

When  Verbeck  had  lived  in  the  United  States,  his  life 
here  was  too  short  to  enable  him  to  become  a  naturalized 
American  citizen,  great  though  his  love  for  this  country 
undoubtedly  was.  At  least  twice  he  applied  to  the 
United  States  Government  to  make  him  a  citizen,  but 
our  laws  seemed  to  forbid  the  action.  At  length  the 
government  of  Japan,  learning  of  his  peculiar  and 
undesirable  status  as  a  man  without  a  country,  issued 
to  him,  without  money  and  without  price,  a  special  pass¬ 
port,  the  equivalent  of  a  notification  to  all  the  world 
that  Japan  took  the  great  missionary  under  its  own 
protection. 

Never  had  Japan  done  such  a  thing  before,  but 
Japan  did  it  now,  and  gladly.  It  thus  honored  G.  F. 
Verbeck,  not  as  a  Dutchman,  not  as  an  American,  but 
as  a  faithful,  devoted  friend  of  the  people  of  Japan. 
And  all  the  world  knows  that  as  a  missionary  of  the 
cross  of  Christ,  “Verbeck  of  Japan”  deserved  all  the 
honors  that  the  imperial  government  could  bestow  upon 
him. 

Suggestion:  1.  Suggest  how  important  Morrison’s  work 
(Lesson  XVIII),  as  a  translator  of  the  Bible  became.  If  he 
had  not  put  the  Bible  into  Chinese,  no  one  knows  how  long 
Japan  and  Wakasa  must  have  waited  for  a  knowledge  of  God’s 
Word. 

2.  On  a  map  show  the  progress  of  the  gospel  over  the 
world.  Carey  (Lesson  XVII),  took  it  to  India;  Judson 
(XIX),  to  Burma;  Morrison  (XVIII),  to  China;  Verbeck  and 


A  CHRISTIAN  HERO  OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  173 


others,  to  Japan  and  Korea;  other  missionaries,  whom  we  have 
not  had  time  to  study,  took  it  to  Syria,  Persia,  and  Arabia. 
Livingstone  and  Mackay,  with  the  cooperation  of  others, 
carried  Christianity  to  Africa.  Much  Christian  work  is  being 
done  in  South  America,  also.  This  leaves  little  of  the  world 
unvisited  by  Christian  missions. 

Books  Suggested 

Griffis,  “Verbeck  of  Japan.” 

Greegan,  “Pioneer  Missionaries  of  the  Church,”  Pages 

90-101. 

Speer,  “Servants  of  the  King,”  pages  75-87. 

Faris,  “Winning  Their  way,”  pages  326-333. 


LESSON  XXIII 

A  CHRISTIAN  HERO  OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS 

Read:  II  Cor.  11:  24-28. 

Memory  Verse:  “The  isles  shall  wait  for  me,  and  on  mine 
arm  shall  they  trust.” — Isa.  51:5. 

A  MODERN  CHALLENGE  OF  A  NEW  ELIJAH 

Excitement  and  terror  ruled  the  island  of  Tanna  in 
the  South  Seas.  Missi,  the  Christian  missionary,  was 
about  to  be  put  to  death  by  black  magic;  the  sorcerers 
had  said  so,  and  Missi  himself  had  dared  them  to  the 
awful  deed !  As  the  three  magicians  arose  and  ap¬ 
proached  one  of  the  island’s  sacred  trees,  the  people 
fled  in  panic,  crying :  “Alas  for  Missi !  Alas  for  Missi !” 

It  all  had  happened  because  at  morning  worship  that 
day  the  three  sorcerers  had  interrupted  Missi’s  preaching 
by  crying  out  that  they  had  no  need  of  the  power  of 
Jehovah.  They  had  power  of  their  own,  they  asserted, 


174  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

power  great  enough  even  to  kill  Missi  himself  by  means 
of  their  magic  arts. 

At  once  the  missionary  determined  to  challenge  them 
to  exert  their  boasted  power  against  that  of  Jehovah, 
the  Protector  of  the  white  man  in  his  Christian  work. 
Let  them  do  their  worst,  Missi  said.  Arrows  and 
spears,  clubs  and  muskets,  they  must  not  use,  of  course, 
but  they  were  free  to  employ  all  their  professed  powers 
of  magic  against  the  defenseless  white  man. 

The  test  began.  The  sorcerers  kindled  a  fire  at  the 
foot  of  the  sacred  tree,  and  into  it  thrust  several  of  the 
tree's  leaves,  in  which  they  had  rolled  some  fruit  that 
the  missionary  had  half  eaten  and  then  given  to  them; 
such  fruit  partly  devoured  by  him  was  sure  to  put 
Missi  into  their  power.  These  leaf-rolled  fruits,  now 
set  ablaze  by  the  sacred  fire,  the  sorcerers  whirled  above 
their  heads.  They  blew  on  the  leaves  with  their  mouths, 
all  the  time  muttering  their  incantations,  and  constantly 
glancing  at  Missi,  to  note  the  expected  signs  of  his  ap¬ 
proaching  death. 

Yet  the  missionary  still  lived,  and  he  seemed  indeed 
in  no  way  harmed.  Instead,  he  was  so  much  alive  that 
several  times  he  taunted  them,  like  Elijah  of  old.  “Be 
quick!'’  he  called  out  to  them.  “Stir  up  your  gods  to 
help  you.  I  am  not  killed  yet.  See,  I  am  still  perfectly 
well  r 

At  length  the  socerers  arose,  and  asked  for  more 
time.  “Give  us  only  until  next  Sabbath,”  they  re¬ 
quested.  “By  next  Sabbath  Missi  will  be  quite  dead!” 

Back  to  his  home  went  the  missionary,  to  await  the 


A  CHRISTIAN  HERO  OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  175 

Sabbath.  Morning  after  morning  the  people  sent  timid 
messengers  to  his  house,  to  peer  about  and  see  if  the 
signs  of  nearing  death  were  visible  on  him.  Yet  every 
day  the  word  went  back  that  Missi  still  lived  and 
seemed  to  be  well,  and  every  day  the  sorcerers  redoubled 
their  cruel  efforts. 

A  MAN  OR  A  SPIRIT 

At  last  the  Sabbath  dawned.  All  the  island  gathered 
on  the  public  ground  in  dreadful  expectation.  Would 
Missi  appear,  or  was  he  even  then  lying  in  his  lonely 
home  in  death  ?  Suddenly  the  exciting  news  was  passed 
from  lip  to  lip :  Some  one  was  coming  up  the  hill  from 
Missi's  house;  was  it  he,  or  was  it  his  spirit? 

Closer  and  closer  came  the  apparition,  the  natives 
staring  at  the  figure  in  terror.  But  their  fear  was  turned 
into  relief  when  the  voice  that  they  were  used  to 
hearing  came  to  them :  “Good  morning,  friends.  Once 
more  I  have  come  to  talk  to  you  of  the  worship  of 
Jehovah.” 

Instantly  the  eyes  of  the  people  turned  to  the 
sorcerers.  Almost  at  once,  also,  one  of  the  three  de¬ 
votees  of  the  black  arts  made  a  full  confession.  “We 
have  failed,”  he  said.  “Missi  still  lives.  But  why? 
It  is  because  Missi’s  God  is  stronger  than  our  gods.’’ 

“Yes,  truly,”  spoke  the  well-known  voice  of  Missi. 
“My  Jehovah  God  is  stronger  than  your  gods.  Your 
gods  cannot  answer  prayers,  but  my  God  can  and  will 
hear.  He  has  protected  me.” 

From  that  day  onward  two  of  the  three  sorcerers 


176  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


were  firm  friends  of  the  missionary ;  they  had  tested  the 
power  of  Missi’s  God,  and  Missi’s  God  had  prevailed. 

LIFE  IN  THE  LAND  OF  BLOODSHED 

This  bold  missionary  was  John  G.  Paton,  and  the  in¬ 
cident  recorded  above  occurred  about  the  year  1861. 
Paton  was  a  Scotch  Presbyterian  who  had  been  a  home 
missionary  for  ten  years  in  Glasgow,  a  man  who  knew 
that  the  South  Sea  islands  were  peopled  by  cannibals, 
and  who  had  nevertheless  gone  to  them  with  the  gospel 
of  Christ.  He  went  because  he  loved  God,  and  because 
he  knew  God  could  protect  him  even  from  man-eating 
savages  of  the  islands  of  the  distant  seas. 

Well  was  it  for  Paton  that  he  carried  to  the  New 
Hebrides  Islands  a  firm  faith  in  the  power  of  God,  for 
countless  times  his  life  was  in  the  direst  danger,  and 
murder  and  cannibalism  were  all  around  him.  Even 
while  he  was  building  his  first  house,  soon  after  his 
arrival  on  Tanna,  a  war  broke  out  between  the  bush 
and  the  port  tribes,  and  the  bodies  of  six  slain  warriors 
were  eaten  by  the  victors  less  than  a  mile  from  his  home. 

Next  day  Paton  heard  a  wild  cry  from  the  villages 
near  by,  and  soon  he  learned  that  a  man  wounded  in 
battle  had  died,  and  that  his  widow  had  just  been 
strangled  to  death,  in  order  that  she  might  keep  him 
company  in  the  spirit  world. 

Time  after  time  Paton  intervened  between  hostile 
tribes  and  prevented  wars,  and  many  a  war  that  broke 
out  he  brought  to  an  early  end.  Yet  heathen  hatred 
and  love  of  bloodshed  oftentimes  proved  too  strong  for 


A  CHRISTIAN  HERO  OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  177 


him,  and  war  after  war  waged  about  him,  to  his  sorrow 
and  to  his  peril. 

FACE  TO  FACE  WITH  DEATH 

In  time  the  people  even  objected  to  Paton’ s  inter¬ 
ference  with  their  customs;  he  opposed  their  wars,  their 
cannibalism,  and  their  murder  of  widows.  So  their 
dark  hearts  turned  to  plans  for  putting  him  out  of  the 
way,  in  order  that  they  might  go  on  with  their  heathen 
practices  without  annoyance. 

At  dawn  one  morning,  when  Paton  awoke  he  dis¬ 
covered  that  the  house  was  surrounded  by  armed  men. 
“We  have  come  to  kill  you,  Missi!"  called  out  a  native 
chief,  who  had  caught  sight  of  him  at  the  window. 
Paton  knelt  down  in  his  room  and,  for  what  seemed 
the  last  time,  gave  himself  once  more  to  Christ,  body 
and  soul. 

Then  he  rose  from  his  knees,  and  boldly  walked  out 
of  his  house,  and  into  the  midst  of  the  savage  throng. 
Before  any  of  them  could  open  the  attack  on  him,  he  be¬ 
gan  to  talk  quietly  with  them  of  the  wickedness  of  their 
plot  against  him.  As  he  talked,  one  or  two  men  stole 
away,  then  others,  and  after  a  while  only  his  better 
friends  remained ;  and  these  swore  to  him  that  they 
would  protect  him  with  their  own  lives. 

Nevertheless,  Paton's  peril  persisted.  Not  long 
afterwards,  at  a  time  when  a  large  number  of  natives 
were  near  his  home,  a  man  dashed  at  him  with  an  ax. 
On  the  instant  a  friendly  chief  leaped  forward,  seized 
a  spade  with  which  the  missionary  had  been  working, 


178  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

and  warded  off  the  wild  man’s  blows  until  the  latter 
turned  away  defeated. 

One  night  Paton  heard  a  hostile  chief  and  his  men 
trying  to  break  in  his  front  door.  But  he  also  heard 
the  barking  of  his  own  small  dog,  and  realized  that  his 
pet  was  driving  the  would-be  murderers  away ;  so  he 
calmly  went  to  sleep.  Three  times  this  happened  before 
daybreak  came  at  last. 

Another  day  brought  still  greater  danger.  Paton 
was  working  near  his  home  when  quickly  a  chief  and 
a  large  body  of  painted  savages  surrounded  him,  each 
one  aiming  a  musket  at  his  head.  No  escape  was  pos¬ 
sible.  Even  to  try  to  speak  seemed  likely  to  let  death 
loose  upon  him.  Silently  he  prayed  for  protection,  and 
as  calmly  as  he  could  kept  on  working.  All  the  time 
each  of  the  savages  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  some  one 
else  to  fire  the  first  shot,  yet  no  one  dared  be  the  first 
to  fire  on  the  undefended  white  man.  So  at  length  they 
all  dumbly  stole  away. 

Finally  the  attacks  grew  bolder,  however — bolder 
and  more  numerous,  and  by  larger  bands  of  men.  In 
the  end  his  enemies  drove  Paton  from  his  house,  and 
at  once  looted  it  of  his  prized  possessions,  reminders 
of  home  and  civilization.  All  that  he  contrived  to  save 
was  his  Bible,  and  his  translation  of  parts  of  the  Bible 
into  the  language  of  the  people  who  now  were  seeking 
his  life. 

Taking  refuge  in  another  house,  with  his  precious 
Scriptures,  the  missionary  was  awakened  at  night  to 
find  the  natives  had  set  fire  to  the  building,  expecting 


A  CHRISTIAN  HERO  OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  179 


to  kill  him  as  he  fled  from  the  flames.  Yet  suddenly  a 
typhoon  swept  over  the  island,  put  out  the  fire,  and 
drove  the  savages  to  shelter  far  away. 

But  this  was  close  to  the  end.  After  the  storm  the 
bloodthirsty  horde  returned  in  redoubled  fury.  Death 
was  very  near  once  more,  when  the  welcome  cry  rang 
out:  “Sail,  ho!"  It  was  a  ship  sent  to  carry  the  white 
man  away  to  safety. 

To  safety  went  the  missionary,  after  more  than  three 
years’  labor  for  the  people  of  Tanna.  Years  more  went 
by  before  any  more  missionaries  were  sent  to  the  island, 
vet  in  time  Christian  missions  were  resumed  on  Tanna, 
and  many  of  the  one-time  foes  of  Jehovah  became  his 
friends  and  loyal  followers. 

WHEN  “rain"  CAME  UP  FROM  BELOW 

From  Tanna,  Paton  went  next  to  the  island  of  Aniwa, 
where  all  his  labor  had  to  be  started  over  again.  He 
had  to  learn  a  new  language,  build  a  new  house,  make 
new  friends,  prevent  new  wars,  meet  new  foes,  and 
oppose  new  heathen  customs.  For  a  long  while  dangers 
like  those  on  Tanna  faced  him,  but  he  came  safely 
through  them  all,  and  in  time  he  saw  the  people  turning 
to  God. 

A  rather  curious  event  marked  the  beginning  of  the 
triumph  of  Christianity  on  Aniwa.  Little  rain  fell  on 
the  island,  and  the  dangers  of  drought  were  great  and 
frequent,  so  Paton  decided  to  dig  a  well,  hoping  to 
reach  an  unfailing  supply  of  fresh  water.  But  when  he 
mentioned  his  purpose  to  his  native  friends,  they  were 


180  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


filled  with  amazement,  and  then  with  grief.  “Who 
ever  heard  of  rain  coming  from  the  earth?”  they  de¬ 
manded.  “How  can  you  expect  our  island  to  send  up 
showers  of  rain  from  below?” 

But  when  the  missionary  persisted,  and  actually  be¬ 
gan  digging  in  the  ground  in  search  of  “rain,”  the 
people  said  sadly  to  one  another :  “Poor  Missi !  That's 
the  way  with  all  who  go  mad;  there’s  no  driving  a 
notion  out  of  their  heads.”  They  thought  that  any  one 
was  surely  insane  who  would  try  to  get  water  from  the 
earth. 

After  a  time  the  white  man  gained  their  cooperation, 
however,  by  paying  them  a  precious  fishhook  for  every 
time  they  carried  three  baskets  of  earth  out  of  the  hole 
in  the  ground.  The  work  went  on  rapidly  thereafter, 
and  one  day  a  marvel  of  marvels  happened.  Water  ran 
up  into  the  hole  in  the  ground,  and  it  was  good  to 
drink ! 

“Rain!  Rain!  Yes,  it  is  rain!"  cried  the  astounded 
people.  “But  where  did  you  get  it?” 

“Jehovah  my  God  gave  it  out  of  his  own  earth,” 
came  the  simple  and  true  reply  of  the  missionary. 

One  by  one  the  people  looked  down  at  “Jehovah’s 
rain,”  in  the  bottom  of  the  well,  and  then  one  chief 
voiced  the  feelings  of  them  all. 

“Missi,  wonderful  indeed  is  the  work  of  your  Jeho¬ 
vah  God !”  he  exclaimed.  “No  god  of  Aniwa  ever 
helped  us  in  this  way!" 

Next  Sunday,  when  worship  time  came,  this  chief 
made  a  remarkable  address  to  the  people.  He  thrilled 


A  CHRISTIAN  HERO  OF  THE  SOUTH  SEAS  181 


them  all  as  he  told  them  of  the  power  of  God  to  bring 
rain  from  the  earth.  “Why  should  he  not  also  send  us 
his  Son  from  heaven?”  he  demanded.  And  all  the 
people  began  to  wonder  after  him,  “Why  not,  indeed?” 

The  success  of  the  well,  and  the  chief’s  address, 
marked  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  heathenism  on 
Aniwa.  Idols  were  given  up,  cannibalism  was  aban¬ 
doned,  Christians  were  baptized,  schools  were  opened, 
and  in  a  short  time  every  person  on  the  island  willingly 
called  himself  a  Christian. 

THE  ISLES  THAT  WAIT  FOR  JEHOVAH 

Similar  victories  for  Christianity  marked  the  work 
of  missionaries  on  other  islands  of  the  New  Hebrides. 
Others  of  the  group  became  almost  or  completely  Chris¬ 
tian.  Within  twenty  years  after  Paton  landed  on  Aniwa, 
about  12,000  natives  of  the  New  Hebrides  had  given  up 
idols  and  cannibalism,  and  had  turned  to  Jehovah,  the 
God  of  Paton  and  of  all  other  “Missis”  who  had  worked 
among  them.  And  when  Paton  died  in  Australia,  in 
1907,  he  died  in  the  knowledge  that  Christianity  would 
soon  win  a  complete  victory  throughout  all  his  be¬ 
loved  group  of  islands. 

Suggestion:  1.  This  is  essentially  a  South  Pacific  lesson,  a 
suitable  completion  of  our  foreign  missionary  survey.  Much 
of  the  work  of  Paton  was  supported  by  the  churches  not  of 
Europe  or  America  but  of  Australia.  Australia,  peopled 
largely  by  emigrants  from  Christian  Great  Britain,  is  so 
largely  Christian  itself  as  to  be  able  to  carry  on  its  own  ag¬ 
gressive  foreign  missionary  work — not  only  on  the  islands, 
indeed,  but  also  in  China,  Korf*a,  and  other  lands  of  Asia. 


182  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

2.  Any  boy  who  likes  thrills  will  enjoy  a  life  of  Paton.  A 
young  folks’  edition  of  his  autobiography  is  procurable. 

Books  Suggested 

Paton’s  Autobiography. 

Genung,  “John  G.  Paton.” 


LESSON  XXIV 

A  CHRISTIAN  MARTYR  AMONG  THE  INDIANS 
Read:  Gen.  11:31  to  12:8. 

Memory  Verse:  “Be  thou  faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will 
give  thee  the  crown  of  life.” — Rev.  2:  10. 


WISE  MEN  FROM  THE  WEST 

On  the  streets  of  the  frontier  town  of  St.  Louis 
there  appeared  one  day  in  1832  four  Indians,  worn  and 
weary  from  a  long  journey.  To  the  wondering  towns¬ 
people  they  explained  that  they  had  heard  in  their  dis¬ 
tant  home  of  the  white  man’s  Book  of  Life,  and  had 
come  in  search  of  it.  Like  the  Wise  Men  of  the  East 
who  sought  in  Palestine  for  the  King  of  the  Jews, 
they  had  come  from  the  West,  over  mountains  and 
plain,  to  find  the  Book  that  tells  of  Jesus,  that  King. 

General  George  Clarke,  commander  of  the  military 
post  at  St.  Louis,  treated  the  “Wise  Men  from  the 
West’’  with  extreme  courtesy.  How  their  quest  ended 
was  related  by  one  of  the  Indians  at  a  farewell  banquet 
given  them  by  the  kindly  general. 

“You  took  me  to  where  you  allow  your  women 
to  dance,  as  we  do  not  ours — and  the  Book  was  not 


CHRISTIAN  MARTYR  AMONG  THE  INDIANS  183 


there, ”  said  the  Indian,  sadly,  in  the  banquet  speech. 
“You  took  me  where  they  worship  the  Great  Spirit  with 
candles — and  the  Book  was  not  there.  You  showed  me 
images  of  the  good  spirits,  and  pictures  of  the  good 
land  beyond — but  the  Book  was  not  among  them.  You 
make  my  feet  heavy  with  burdens  of  gifts,  and  my 
moccasins  will  grow  old  in  carrying  them — but  the 
Book  is  not  among  them.  When  I  tell  my  poor  blind 
people  that  I  did  not  bring  the  Book,  one  by  one  they 
will  rise,  and  go  out  in  silence.  My  people  will  die  in 
darkness.” 

i 

“to  save  the  peqple  that  sat  in  darkness” 

These  pathetic  words,  published  throughout  the 
United  States,  awakened  the  churches  to  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  Indians  of  the  unknown  Northwest. 
Among  the  younger  men  of  the  nation  who  were  stirred 
by  the  appeal  was  a  physician  of  Rushville,  New  York, 
named  Marcus  Whitman.  Fired  with  a  love  of  ad¬ 
venture,  a  love  of  God  and  a  pity  for  the  red  man,  in 
1835,  Marcus  Whitman  entered  on  his  memorable  life 
of  labor  in  behalf  of  the  American  Indian. 

This  career  was  only  twelve  years  long,  yet  it  had 
momentous  results.  It  began  the  work  of  giving  the 
gospel  to  the  copper-hued  Americans  of  the  Northwest. 
It  carried  civilization  to  the  Indian.  It  spread  the  fame 
of  what  is  known  as  “the  Oregon  country”  over  all  the 
states  east  of  the  Mississippi  River.  And  it  had  a  large 
part  in  deciding  whether  Oregon  and  Washington  were 
to  be  a  part  of  the  United  States  or  to  belong  to  Canada. 


184  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

Like  many  another  missionary  of  the  Church,  whether 
home  or  foreign,  Whitman  was  a  pathfinder  for  civi¬ 
lization  as  well  as  for  Christianity. 

Three  journeys  from  the  East  to  the  Northwest  were 
made  by  Whitman;  the  first  was  an  exploring  trip,  to 
discover  the  prospects  for  missionary  work ;  the  second 
was  his  first  trip  on  which  he  reached  the  Oregon 
country;  and  the  third  was  his  return  journey  from  an 
historic  expedition  to  Washington,  D.  C.  The  second 
of  these  transcontinental  journeys  was  rendered  more 
difficult  than  the  first  because  on  it  he  was  accompanied 
by  his  bride,  and  because  his  companion,  Rev.  H.  H. 
Spalding,  also  took  his  wife  with  him.  Mrs.  Whitman 
and  Mrs.  Spalding  were  the  first  white  women  ever  to 
cross  the  Rocky  Mountains.  But  difficult  as  it  was, 
the  journey  was  accomplished  with  success,  though  not 
without  great  hardship  and  danger. 

From  New  York  to  Council  Bluffs,  Iowa,  the  jour¬ 
ney  was  by  sleigh  and  canal  boat  to  the  Ohio  River, 
thence  to  Cairo,  Illinois,  down  the  Ohio ;  to  St.  Louis 
on  the  Mississippi ;  and  to  Council  Bluffs  on  the  Missis¬ 
sippi  and  Missouri  Rivers.  Having  joined  a  large  com¬ 
pany  of  fur  traders  at  Council  Bluffs,  the  pioneers  there¬ 
after  accompanied  the  merchants  along  the  Missouri 
and  North  Platte  Rivers  to  the  base  of  the  Rockies. 

Trouble  grew  up  about  them  almost  from  the  first. 
Before  leaving  Iowa  Mr.  Spalding  for  example  had 
been  drenched  in  rivers,  had  experienced  having  his 
tent  blown  down  by  a  cyclone  while  he  was  in  it,  and 
had  been  repeatedly  attacked  by  fever  and  ague. 


CHRISTIAN  MARTYR  AMONG  THE  INDIANS  185 


Whitman’s  purpose  was  to  take  with  him  a  wagon, 
and  in  spite  of  seemingly  insuperable  obstacles,  he  suc¬ 
ceeded.  One  night  he  rejoined  the  caravan,  after  hav¬ 
ing  been  separated  from  it  all  day,  trying  to  find  a  pass¬ 
able  road  for  his  precious  vehicle.  He  came  into  camp 
utterly  exhausted  but  in  good  spirits,  for  he  reported 
that  his  wagon  had  been  overturned  only  once  during 
the  day.  He  effectively  demonstrated  on  the  journey 
that  a  wagon  road  over  the  mountains  was  practicable, 
a  feat  that  later  prevailed  on  thousands  of  settlers  to 
make  the  journey  to  Oregon  after  him. 

“for  god  and  native  land” 

The  Fourth  of  July  of  that  year,  1836,  was  a  great 
day  for  the  missionary  pioneers.  It  was  a  holiday 
marked  by  both  patriotism  and  Christian  loyalty.  That 
day  saw  the  travelers  on  the  summit  of  the  Rockies. 
With  his  companions,  Whitman  walked  over  to  the 
Pacific  side  of  the  slope,  the  party  carrying  a  Bible 
and  an  American  flag;  there  they  fell  on  their  knees, 
and  took  possession  of  the  Pacific  coast  lands  as  a 
home  for  Americans  and  as  a  realm  of  Christ.  And 
they  afterwards  so  lived  as  to  make  their  taking  pos¬ 
session  stand,  not  for  mere  zeal,  but  for  actual  fact. 
Because  of  them,  the  Oregon  country  in  time  became 
both  American  and  Christian. 

From  the  mountain  top  to  Walla  Walla,  the  pioneers 
encountered  the  most  hazardous  part  of  their  journey. 
Through  a  wilderness  of  glens  and  precipices,  volcanic 
wastes  and  rushing  streams,  they  made  their  perilous 


186  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


way.  Their  cattle  grew  footsore  and  had  to  be  shod. 
Their  flour  was  exhausted  and  they  were  forced  to  live 
on  buffalo  meat,  which,  while  nourishing,  quickly  be¬ 
came  a  monotonous  diet.  Incompetent  guides  misled 
them,  and  lost  them  many  a  weary  mile.  Swamps  and 
swollen  streams  impeded  their  progress,  swarms  of 
mosquitoes  and  pests  of  fleas  annoyed  them,  and  always 
dangers  from  untrustworthy  and  even  hostile  Indians 
surrounded  them. 

In  the  Bear  River  valley  a  few  friendly  Indians 
started  some  antelope  one  day,  with  their  usual  yells  and 
flying  flags.  The  commotion  frightened  the  mules  at¬ 
tached  to  a  cart,  and  the  animals  consequently  ran  into 
the  horse  on  which  Mrs.  Spalding  was  riding,  threw 
it  down,  and  with  the  cart  ran  over  both  the  horse  and 
its  unfortunate  rider. 

Another  day  her  horse,  having  stepped  in  a  wasps’ 
nest,  swerved  quickly,  and  threw  her  from  its  back,  her 
feet  hanging  in  the  stirrup.  Much  of  this  time  she, 
like  others  of  the  party,  was  quite  ill.  Only  heroic  de¬ 
termination  kept  each  of  the  party  to  his  purpose  of 
pressing  on  despite  illness,  mishaps,  and  perils  known 
and  unknown. 

In  time,  however,  the  dangerous  journey  came  to  its 
end.  On  September  1,  six  months  after  leaving  St. 
Louis,  the  pioneers  drew  in  sight  of  the  fort  at  Walla 
Walla.  Refreshed  by  a  taste  of  frontier  hospitality  at 
the  fort,  the  missionary  families  shortly  afterwards 
separated.  The  Spaldings  went  to  Clearwater  River, 
to  work  among  the  Nez  Perces,  and  the  Whitmans  to 


CHRISTIAN  MARTYR  AMONG  THE  INDIANS  187 


Waiilatpu,  twenty-five  miles  from  Walla  Walla,  for  a 
life  among  the  Cayuse  Indians. 

AT  WORK  FOR  THE  RED  MAN 

At  Waiilatpu  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whitman  lived  for  eleven 
years.  They  established  there  a  flourishing  station  of 
civilization  and  of  missions.  A  garden,  a  mill,  black¬ 
smith  shop,  and  thriving  fields  of  corn  and  wheat  were 
maintained.  Within  a  few  years  a  visitor  from  the 
East  told  of  seeing  wheat  grown  by  the  Indians  under 
Dr.  Whitman's  instruction  that  was  seven  feet  high, 
and  corn  that  towered  nine  feet  in  the  air. 

Mrs.  Whitman  established  and  taught  a  school.  In¬ 
side  of  three  years  she  was  instructing  fifty  Indian 
children.  Religious  teaching  was  given,  also,  and 
many  of  the  Indians  became  firm  friends  of  the  mis¬ 
sionaries  and  loyal  servants  of  God  in  spite  of  their 
tribesmen's  opposition. 

Dr.  Whitman  was  tireless  in  his  medical  work  for 
his  Indian  friends  and  Mrs.  Whitman  was  faithful  in 
her  nursing  of  the  sick  and  injured.  After  a  while  a 
tragic  break  was  to  come  in  their  relations  with  the 
Cayuses,  but  in  the  meantime  a  community  of  Christian 
Indians  lived  in  the  station  who  looked  up  to  Dr.  and 
Mrs.  Whitman  as  to  their  own  fathers  and  mothers. 

Into  the  midst  of  this  prosperous  life  there  came 
news  that  meant  much  for  Dr.  Whitman,  and  indeed 
for  the  entire  nation.  He  learned  that  the  famous 
Daniel  Webster,  at  Washington,  D.  C.,  was  negotiating 
a  treaty  with  Great  Britain  that  was  said  to  contain 


188  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


provisions  for  giving  Canada  all  the  Oregon  country. 
So  intense  was  Dr.  Whitman’s  love  for  his  country  that 
such  a  possibility  seemed  to  him  incredible.  He  be¬ 
lieved  that  if  the  Washington  Government  could  be 
given  first-hand  information  as  to  the  resources  of  the 
Northwest  territories  and  of  their  general  desirability, 
there  would  be  no  further  thought  of  surrendering  the 
Oregon  land.  Whitman  determined  to  be  the  man  to 
carry  this  information  to  the  national  capital. 

WHITMAN  TO  THE  RESCUE 

With  winter  approaching,  a  journey  east  would  be 
extremely  hazardous,  but  Whitman  set  out.  He  would 
need  to  detour  to  an  unfamiliar  route,  yet  he  went  on. 
Instead  of  a  large  company  of  fellow  travelers,  he  could 
have  only  one,  a  young  companion  named  Lovejoy,  yet 
he  set  out  with  all  speed  and  energy. 

Winter  broke  on  the  two  travelers.  Snows  were 
blinding  and  deep,  and  they  cost  Whitman  and  Lovejoy 
much  precious  time.  In  a  deep  ravine  they  were  snowed 
in,  without  shelter,  for  four  days.  Countless  times,  in 
fact,  they  were  in  peril  from  the  cold.  They  swam 
streams  between  floating  cakes  of  ice  or  crossed  on  a 
coat  of  ice  so  thin  that  it  bore  Whitman’s  weight  onlv 
because  he  spread  himself  flat  on  his  face  and  crawled  to 
the  other  bank  at  the  pace  of  a  snail.  Time  after  time 
Whitman  was  lost  in  the  snow,  and  often  he  was  close 
to  starvation.  Mule  meat,  dog  meat,  and  unsavory  food 
of  other  kinds  was  eaten  in  order  to  keep  him  alive  on 
his  weighty  errand. 


CHRISTIAN  MARTYR  AMONG  THE  INDIANS  189 


Once  more  St.  Louis  was  astonished  by  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  an  unexpected  messenger  from  the  West,  not 
an  Indian  this  time  but  a  white  man.  Dressed  in  buck¬ 
skin  breeches,  fur  leggins,  and  boot  moccasins,  with 
a  four  months’  growth  of  beard  on  his  face,  and  with 
fingers  and  nose  frozen,  Marcus  Whitman  entered  St. 
Louis  on  a  mid-winter  day.  When  the  city  learned  that 
he  had  come  all  the  way  from  Walla  Walla  through 
blizzard  and  torrent  its  surprise  was  unbounded. 

But  Whitman  had  no  time  to  appease  the  wonder¬ 
ment  of  the  citizens.  On  to  Washington  he  pressed 
his  speedy  way,  arriving  there  five  months  after  leaving 
Walla  Walla,  having  made  a  remarkably  swift  journey. 
At  Washington  he  saw  Daniel  Webster,  President 
Tyler,  and  members  of  Congress,  and  soon  had  the 
satisfaction  of  knowing  that  his  mission  was  not  in 
vain.  The  Oregon  country  would  not  be  abandoned 
to  any  foreign  power.  Emigrants  in  considerable 
numbers  were  ready  to  move  to  the  new  territories, 
and  the  United  States  Government  would  protect  them 
with  the  nation’s  flag. 

Probably  a  deciding  factor  in  the  success  of  Whit¬ 
man’s  mission  was  his  conclusive  proof  that  a  wagon 
road  could  be  built  over  the  Rockies.  He  proved  it 
by  telling  the  story  of  his  now  famous  wagon,  con¬ 
veyed  by  him  over  the  mountains  with  immense  toil 
but  with  historic  triumph.  That  wagon,  and  the  resist¬ 
less  will  of  Whitman  that  took  it  across  the  Rockies, 
and  then  carried  him  on  his  momentous  journey  back  to 
Washington — the  wagon  and  the  will  saved  the  rich 


190  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 

and  now  populous  Oregon  country  to  the  United 
States. 

Back  to  his  mission  at  Waiilatpu  went  Whitman,  this 
time  in  the  easier  summer  time,  and  accompanied  by 
several  hundred  pioneer  settlers  whom  he  piloted  across 
the  plains  and  mountains.  Restored  to  his  wife  and 
to  his  family  of  Indians  after  more  than  a  year’s  ab¬ 
sence,  Whitman  settled  down  once  more  to  his  work  of 
Christianization  and  civilization  in  the  Oregon  country 
that  he  now  had  won  for  the  nation. 

THE  MAKING  OF  A  CHRISTIAN  MARTYR 

About  four  years  after  the  famous  journey  to  Wash¬ 
ington  tragedy  came  to  the  mission  station.  Opposition 
to  labors  of  the  missionaries,  never  entirely  absent, 
grew  to  an  acute  stage  in  1847.  Some  leaders  of  the 
Indians  determined  to  put  a  stop  to  the  work,  and  even 
to  kill  the  faithful  missionaries  themselves.  A  pretext 
arose  in  an  unexpected  and  pitiful  manner.  An  epi¬ 
demic  of  measles  broke  out  among  the  red  men,  and 
death  stalked  among  them.  In  superstition,  the  foes 
of  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Whitman  claimed  that  the  missionaries 
were  responsible  for  the  fatal  disease,  yet  throughout 
the  epidemic  the  physician  and  his  loyal  wife  were  toil¬ 
ing  with  all  their  strength,  skill  and  resources  to  save 
the  Indians’  lives  and  to  lighten  their  sufferings. 

A  crisis  arose  when  a  half-breed  Indian  boy,  who, 
like  many  others  of  the  Indian  children,  had  free  entry 
to  the  missionaries’  home,  told  the  Indians  a  terrible 
falsehood.  This  boy  asserted  that  he  had  overheard 


CHRISTIAN  MARTYR  AMONG  THE  INDIANS  191 

Dr.  Whitman  planning  to  poison  the  red  men  with  his 
medicines,  instead  of  curing  them,  in  order  to  get  the 
Indians’  lands  for  the  white  race.  Even  firm  friend¬ 
ship  might  have  given  way  before  such  a  base  but  ap¬ 
parently  convincing  lie  as  this,  and  the  leaders  of  the 
Indians  were  not  friends,  but  foes.  They  stirred  up 
their  followers  with  the  slander,  roused  them  to  fury, 
and  instigated  a  pitiless  massacre. 

The  massacre  was  carried  out.  The  “braves”  fell 
on  the  defenseless  mission,  burned  the  buildings,  took 
fifty  men,  women  and  children  captive,  and  killed  four¬ 
teen  others,  including  the  heads  of  the  mission  them¬ 
selves,  the  faithful  and  unselfish  Dr.  and  Mrs. 
Whitman. 

So  closed  the  earthly  labor  of  Marcus  Whitman.  It 
ended  as  it  had  been  carried  on — with  an  accompani¬ 
ment  of  courage  and  consecration  that  thrill  every 
reader  of  the  story.  That  story,  a  tale  of  martyr  death 
after  a  journey  that  won  the  Oregon  country,  is  told  in 
some  of  our  histories.  It  is  glorified  in  the  annals  of  the 
Church.  It  is  celebrated  in  motion  pictures.  To  every 
Christian,  and  to  every  American  also,  the  life  of 
Marcus  Whitman  is  a  story  that  inspires  to  a  greater 
loyalty  to  America  and  to  a  deeper  consecration  to 
Christ. 

Suggestion:  1.  Note  the  parallel  between  the  career  of 
Whitman  and  that  of  Livingstone.  Each  opened  a  road  across 
a  vast  continent  for  civilization  and  for  Christ. 

2.  The  work  of  Christian  missions  among  the  Indians, 
combined  with  the  humane  attitude  of  the  American  Govern¬ 
ment,  has  saved  the  Indian.  Some  years  ago  it  appeared  that 


192  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


the  red  man  was  doomed  to  extinction,  but  now  census  figures 
show  that  the  Indians  in  the  United  States  are  surely  increas¬ 
ing  in  numbers.  And  where  Christianity  is  working  among 
them,  it  is  leading  them  into  a  Christian  life  that  means 
contentment  and  a  prosperity  worth  far  more  to  them  than 
even  the  advantages  of  an  enlightened  American  civilization 
that  are  theirs. 

Books  Suggested 

Eels,  “Marcus  Whitman,  Pathfinder  and  Patriot.” 

Faris,  “Winning  the  Oregon  Country.” 

Craighead,  “The  Story  of  Marcus  Whitman.” 

Humphreys,  “Missionary  Explorers  Among  the  American 
Indians,”  pages  121-183. 


LESSON  XXV 

THE  EARLIEST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  ALASKANS 

Read:  Isa.  ch.  55. 

Memory  Verse:  “All  the  nations  shall  come  and  worship 
before  thee.” — Rev.  15:  4. 

A  PIONEER  SUNDAY  IN  FROZEN  NEW  YORK 

Any  boy  who  lived  on  a  farm  in  New  York  State 
about  the  year  1845,  was  likely  to  know  a  good  deal 
about  the  hardships  of  country  life.  One  such  boy  was 
Sheldon  Jackson,  who  knew  privation  but  who  also 
knew  real  religion.  A  biography  of  this  boy  tells  us  of 
a  typical  Sunday  spent  by  his  family,  at  a  time  when 
they  lived  ten  miles  from  town.  Here  is  the  way  Shel¬ 
don  Jackson  the  boy  spent  a  winter  Sunday. 

Aroused  while  it  was  still  dark,  the  boy  joined  his 
father  and  the  others  in  doing  the  farm  chores;  then 
all  sat  down  to  a  hearty  breakfast,  which  was  con- 


EARLIEST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  ALASKANS  193 


sumed  before  daylight  ever  had  peered  over  the  eastern 
hills.  After  breakfast  the  team  was  hitched  to  the 
sleigh,  into  which  were  put  buffalo  robes,  blankets, 
straw,  an  ax,  a  shovel,  a  heated  soapstone  to  keep  the 
feet  warm,  and  also  a  well-filled  lunch  basket. 

On  the  road  to  town  snowdrifts  were  encountered 
so  deep  that  the  ax  was  used  to  cut  down  a  fence,  and 
the  sleigh  traveled  in  the  fields  until  the  worst  of  the 
snow  was  past,  when  once  more  the  road  was  followed. 
Reaching  town,  Sheldon’s  father  shoveled  a  path  from 
the  church  barn  to  the  church  door,  then  built  a  fire, 
got  the  building  warm,  and  rang  the  bell  for  morning 
worship. 

After  the  long  service,  lunch  was  eaten,  and  then  the 
sleigh  was  brought  out,  and  the  homeward  journey  be¬ 
gan.  Soon  after  dark,  or  perhaps  a  little  while  before 
dark,  the  farmhouse  was  reached  again.  Evening  chores 
were  completed,  supper  was  eaten,  and  the  tired  family 
went  to  a  well-earned  sleep. 

Those  days  of  hardships,  which  doubtless  did  not 
seem  especially  hard  to  the  boy  Sheldon,  helped  to  pre¬ 
pare  him  for  his  toilsome  and  often  dangerous  later  life 
as  one  of  the  best  known  missionaries  of  the  Presby¬ 
terian  Church.  Crammed  with  adventures  and  pri¬ 
vations  was  that  illustrious  life,  yet  Sheldon  Jackson 
appears  to  have  passed  through  them  all  with  no  realiza¬ 
tion  that  he  was  doing  unusual  deeds.  Like  other 
“Builders  of  the  Church"  in  home  and  foreign  lands, 
Jackson  labored  hard,  long,  and  victoriously  as  a  faith¬ 
ful  servant  of  Jesus  Christ. 


194  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


WITH  STATES  FOR  A  PARISH 

Jackson  began  in  1858,  his  fifty  years  of  work  as  a 
home  missionary.  He  had  wanted  to  go  as  a  foreign 
missionary  to  Asia,  but  instead  he  was  sent  to  the  red 
men  of  Indian  Territory,  now  Oklahoma.  For  a  time 
he  preached  seven  sermons  a  week,  and  traveled  seventy 
miles  each  seven  days,  then  he  was  transferred  to  the 
North. 

In  Minnesota  and  Wisconsin,  Jackson  had  a  “parish" 
supposed  to  be  only  about  forty  miles  long,  but  he  saw 
around  him  a  need  so  great  that  in  no  time  at  all  he 
was  covering  a  circle  of  three  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
in  circumference  and  including  eighteen  counties,  a 
region  as  large  as  all  the  State  of  Maryland.  In  his 
first  six  months  he  walked  four  hundred  miles,  and 
traveled  hundreds  more  by  sleigh  and  on  horseback.  One 
day  he  rode  home  in  a  temperature  twenty-eight  degrees 
below  zero,  and  another  day  came  home  from  a  twenty- 
two  mile  walk  with  an  arm  and  one  side  of  his  face 
frozen. 

When,  in  1869,  Jackson  was  transferred  to  Iowa, 
he  had  organized  twenty-three  churches,  obtained 
twenty-seven  ministers  for  his  large  field,  and  collected 
$13,500  for  home  missions.  But  this  record  only  served 
as  a  prophecy  of  much  greater  things  that  he  was  to  do 
in  the  West  and  Northwest. 

AT  PRAYER  ON  A  HILLTOP 

One  spring  day  in  1869,  Jackson  and  two  other 
ministers  who  were  attending  a  meeting  of  the  Presby- 


EARLIEST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  ALASKANS  195 


tery  of  the  Missouri  River  at  Sioux  City,  walked  to  the 
top  of  a  hill  near  the  town.  From  the  crest  of  the  hill 
they  looked  west  and  north,  seeing  parts  of  Iowa,  Ne¬ 
braska,  South  Dakota,  and  Minnesota,  and  with  their 
minds’  eyes  seeing  also  the  vast  stretches  of  more  dis¬ 
tant  territory  belonging  to  the  presbytery’s  field. 

That  territory  went  all  the  way  west  to  California, 
and  in  all  this  region  churches  were  few.  The  men 
realized  that  on  the  new  Union  Pacific  Railroad,  the 
only  railway  to  the  West,  there  was  no  Presbyterian 
church  between  Omaha,  Nebraska,  and  Sacramento, 
California,  and  that  in  the  extensive  territories  to  the 
Northwest,  including  Wyoming,  Washington,  and 
Alaska,  the  Presbyterian  churches  numbered  only  eleven. 

Moved  to  the  depths  of  their  souls  by  the  need  and 
the  Christian  possibilities  of  this  limitless  region,  the 
three  ministers  fell  on  their  knees.  On  their  knees 
they  cried  to  God  for  help  to  take  this  land  for  Christ. 
And  from  this  outdoor  prayer  gathering,  which  is 
known  to  history  as  “the  hilltop  prayer  meeting,”  the 
three  men  went  to  a  momentous  session  of  presbytery. 

That  session,  in  the  inspiration  of  the  hilltop  vision, 
took  decisive  action.  The  presbytery  appointed  Jack- 
son  superintendent  of  missions,  for  “as  far  as  our  juris¬ 
diction  extends.’’  And  Jackson  setting  to  work  at  once 
made  his  task  as  great  and  as  exacting  as  possible.  He 
did  not  stop  with  Iowa,  or  Colorado,  or  even  Wyoming, 
but  pushed  on  to  Washington,  and  then  even  to  distant 
Alaska.  Thus  in  time  he  became  the  earliest  Christian 
apostle  to  the  Alaskans  of  the  far  Northwest. 


196  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


ADVENTURING  FOR  CHRIST  IN  THE  FAR  WEST 

Jackson  worked  like  a  locomotive — swiftly,  power¬ 
fully,  and  over  a  vast  region.  Inside  of  three  days  he 
had  put  three  ministers  to  work  on  the  Union  Pacific 
line  of  frontier  towns,  and  in  a  few  weeks  more  he  had 
added  four  others.  His  first  month  at  work  saw  him 
dashing  from  his  home  in  Iowa  to  the  base  of  the 
Rockies  in  Wyoming,  a  land  of  the  uncivilized  fron¬ 
tier. 

When  Jackson  went  out  of  his  hotel  in  Cheyenne, 
Wyoming,  one  morning,  he  found  lying  on  the  ground 
the  body  of  a  man  who  had  been  stabbed  to  death  dur¬ 
ing  the  night.  He  learned  that  the  first  seven  graves 
in  Cheyenne’s  cemetery  were  those  of  men  who  had 
died  violent  deaths.  As  he  traveled  about  in  the  huge 
West,  he  discovered  that  practically  all  of  his  fellow 
passengers  on  stagecoaches  carried  weapons  on  their 
knees  or  close  by  their  sides,  so  constant  was  the 
fear  of  hostile  Indians  and  of  avaricious  highway 
robbers. 

To  change  this  terror  into  trust,  and  a  savage  waste 
into  a  land  of  Christian  civilization,  Jackson  labored 
diligently.  One  month  he  journeyed  2,300  miles  by  rail 
and  1,200  by  stagecoach,  and  in  two  weeks  of  this  time 
he  organized  seven  churches  in  Nebraska,  Wyoming 
and  Montana.  In  all  that  first  year  the  new  churches 
that  he  formed  totaled  twenty-three.  When  his  first 
church  was  established  in  Wyoming,  it  was  the  only 
Presbyterian  organization  within  a  thousand  miles  in 
any  direction. 


EARLIEST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  ALASKANS  197 


One  perilous  trip  by  stage  is  worth  describing.  For 
four  nights  and  five  days  the  coach  dashed  on,  with 
stops  only  for  changing  horses  and  for  some  meals, 
for  it  was  thirty-six  hours  behind  schedule.  The  day 
after  it  had  rushed  through  a  dangerous  camp  of  Snake 
Indians,  a  cry  of  “murder"  was  heard  in  a  white  men’s 
camp.  But  when  the  passengers  leaped  from  the 
vehicle,  they  were  met  by  revolvers  thrust  into  their 
faces  and  an  order  not  to  interfere  in  the  fight  then  go¬ 
ing  on  between  two  men.  Helplessly,  they  looked  on 
until  the  loser  was  carried  away  by  his  friends,  with 
broken  ribs  and  bruised  head,  a  physical  wreck. 

Here  the  stage  was  abandoned,  the  passengers  going 
on  in  a  lumber  wagon.  Through  a  cold  and  drizzling 
rain  they  pushed  on,  only  to  be  stopped  by  a  rushing 
torrent ;  the  bridge  had  gone  down  in  the  flood.  Little 
daunted  the  travelers  made  a  raft  of  logs,  and  in  several 
trips  contrived  to  carry  wagon,  horses,  and  passengers 
safely  to  the  other  side.  After  another  cold  night, 
spent  mostly  in  camp  out  of  doors,  the  weary  travelers 
safely  reached  their  destination,  Helena,  Montana. 

Amid  perils  of  Indians,  perils  of  robbers,  perils  of 
floods  and  storms,  and  snow  and  ice,  for  eight  years  the 
fearless  home  missionary,  Jackson,  pursued  his  tireless 
work  for  Christ.  Everywhere  he  established  churches, 
encouraged  Christians,  and  always  pushed  the  frontier 
of  civilization  farther  into  the  mighty  West. 

At  length  the  church  had  grown  so  rapidly  that  this 
“Bishop  of  the  Outside  World,"  as  he  sometimes  was 
called,  found  only  one  large  and  quite  neglected  region 


198  MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


left  to  his  adventurous  and  consecrated  soul.  This 
was  Alaska,  so  to  Alaska  Sheldon  Jackson  went. 

PIONEERING  IN  FROZEN  ALASKA 

To  Fort  Wrangell,  in  1877,  Jackson  took  Mrs.  Mc¬ 
Farland  as  a  permanent  missionary  to  Alaska,  then  re¬ 
turned  to  the  United  States  to  get  more  workers.  For 
many  months  Mrs.  McFarland  was  the  town's  nurse, 
doctor,  undertaker,  preacher,  school-teacher,  and  even 
mayor.  Tribes  of  Indians  heard  of  her  presence,  and 
came  to  her  for  help,  always  eager  to  gain  knowledge 
of  the  love  of  the  Great  Spirit  for  them. 

Within  two  years  five  other  missionaries  had  been 
sent  by  Jackson  to  Alaska,  including  another  woman 
worker,  to  join  Mrs.  McFarland  in  her  lonely  labors. 
Others  followed  as  the  years  passed  by,  and  the  work  of 
Christian  missions  in  Alaska  prospered  mightily. 

Honors  and  added  duties  came  also  to  Jackson  him¬ 
self.  In  1885,  President  Cleveland  appointed  him 
director  of  education  in  Alaska.  Opposed  by  other 
American  officials  there  because  of  his  effort  to  educate 
the  ignorant  Indians  of  Alaska,  Jackson  was  arrested 
and  thrown  into  prison.  But  when  the  president 
learned  the  facts  he  removed  the  offending  officials,  in¬ 
cluding  even  the  United  States  judge;  and  Jackson’s 
later  work  met  with  much  less  obstruction.  Alaska’s 
system  of  education,  which  lifted  countless  thousands 
of  natives  and  Americans  from  ignorance  to  civiliza¬ 
tion,  was  the  direct  result  of  the  magnificent  labors  of 
this  home  missionary. 


EARLIEST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  ALASKANS  199 


REINDEER  TO  THE  RESCUE 

Many  remarkable  deeds  were  done  by  Jackson  for 
the  uplifting  of  the  Alaskans,  but  the  most  famous 
achievement  was  in  connection  with  reindeer.  On  his 
first  voyage  to  the  part  of  Alaska  lying  north  of  the 
Arctic  Circle,  the  missionary  found  the  native  tribes 
there  on  the  verge  of  starvation.  As  a  means  of  insur¬ 
ing  them  a  perpetual  source  of  livelihood,  Jackson  de¬ 
termined  to  make  an  unthought-of  experiment.  He 
proposed  to  change  the  natives  from  hunters  to  herders, 
by  importing  for  their  use  a  herd  of  reindeer. 

The  project  was  laughed  at  in  Congress,  but  Jack- 
son  kept  his  faith  in  it.  Even  when  Congress  did  ap¬ 
propriate  funds  for  the  experiment,  however,  the  dif¬ 
ficulties  that  Jackson  faced  were  apparently  insurmount¬ 
able.  Yet  this  resourceful  home  missionary  fulfilled 
his  purpose.  He  crossed  over  to  Siberia,  brought  back 
herd  after  herd  of  reindeer,  lent  these  to  the  Alaskans, 
saw  the  deer  prosper  in  their  new  home,  often  traveled 
in  sleighs  drawn  at  lightning  speed  over  the  snow  and 
ice  by  fleet  reindeer,  and  even  established  for  the  United 
States  Government  America’s  first  reindeer  postal  route. 

The  ridiculed  project  had  succeeded.  The  reindeer  , 
changed  the  Alaskans  from  poverty-stricken  people 
always  in  peril  of  starvation,  to  self-supporting  and 
self-respecting  reindeer  proprietors.  The  imported 
animals  now  provide  their  owners  with  food,  clothing, 
and  shelter.  Alaskan  natives  eat  reindeer  meat,  drink 
reindeer  milk,  use  reindeer  skins  to  make  garments, 
beds,  tents,  and  shoes ;  of  the  antlers  they  make  bows  and 


200 


MODERN  BUILDERS  OF  THE  CHURCH 


knife  handles;  of  the  sinews  they  manufacture  thread; 
and  the  fat  they  burn  as  fuel.  Probably  never  in  the 
history  of  mankind  has  any  one  person  given  greater 
material  benefit  to  any  one  race  of  men  than  Sheldon 
Jackson  gave  the  Alaskans  by  his  importation  of  Si¬ 
berian  reindeer. 

REMEMBERED  FOR  THE  GOOD  HE  HAD  DONE 

In  his  fifty  years  Sheldon  Jackson  journeyed  year 
after  year  in  eight  states  and  territories  besides  Alaska. 
In  thirteen  consecutive  years  he  traveled  more  than 
26,000  miles  a  year.  In  his  deer-importing  activities 
he  made  one  trip  to  the  capital  of  Kamchatka,  and 
thirty-two  trips  to  Siberia,  eight  of  these  being  to  points 
north  of  the  Arctic  Circle.  He  traveled  altogether  one 
million  miles — on  horseback  and  foot,  by  rail  and  stage, 
buckboard,  army  ambulance,  lumber  wagon,  mule 
team,  oxcart ;  on  bronchos,  reindeer  sledge,  freight  and 
construction  trains;  by  steamship,  dugout,  launch,  and 
canoe,  revenue  cutter,  war  vessel,  schooner,  and  cattle 
ship. 

Perils  were  almost  an  expected  affair  with  Jackson. 
So  often  was  he  in  danger  on  steamers  and  in  dugouts 
and  canoes,  amid  ice  floes  and  dangerous  ice  packs  of 
the  far  North,  that  three  different  times  the  newspapers 
of  the  United  States  told  of  his  death  in  the  frozen 
wastes.  Yet  when  he  died,  it  was  not  in  Alaska,  but  in 
Asheville,  North  Carolina.  This  was  in  1909,  when 
Jackson  was  seventy-five  years  old,  an  old  man,  full 
of  good  deeds. 


EARLIEST  APOSTLE  TO  THE  ALASKANS  201 

For  what  shall  we  remember  Sheldon  Jackson?  For 
his  work  in  Indian  territory?  His  pioneer  labors  in 
Minnesota?  His  hilltop  prayer  meeting?  His  count¬ 
less  churches  organized  in  Colorado,  Wyoming,  and 
Montana?  His  reindeer  importations?  His  opening 
of  that  farthest  north  of  all  missionary  stations,  at 
Point  Barrow,  Alaska,  a  frontier  station  still  valiantly 
maintained?  We  cannot  say  which  of  these  is  held  in 
highest  account  by  his  divine  Master  and  ours.  But 
one  thing  we  can  be  sure  of — that  all  the  United  States, 
all  Alaska,  and  even  all  the  world,  is  better  for  the  life 
lived  by  Sheldon  Jackson,  the  earliest  of  the  ambassa¬ 
dors  of  Christ  to  the  Alaskan  people. 

Suggestion:  Whitman  gave  civilization  to  the  despised 
Oregon  country;  Jackson  gave  it  to  equally  scorned  Alaska. 
And  on  the  foundation  that  they  laid,  men  and  women,  con¬ 
secrated  to  God  as  were  Whitman  and  Jackson,  just  now  are 
carrying  forward  the  work  of  God.  To-day  God  needs  other 
Christian  leaders  like  them  and  like  all  other  “Builders  of 
the  Church” — in  cities,  in  the  country,  in  the  West,  in  Alaska, 
and  in  every  foreign  land.  Who  of  the  members  of  this 
daily  vacation  Bible  school  will  be  numbered  among  these 
future  ambassadors  of  the  cross? 

Books  Suggested 

Stewart,  “Sheldon  Jackson.” 

Faris,  “The  Alaskan  Pathfinder.” 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1  1012  01035  3383 

_ _ _ _ _ _  .  _  _ _ _ _ -  -Ai  - - - 


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